The Princess Who Carries the Blood of the Goddess
by The Loud Guy
Summary: One hundred years have passed since the Calamity was freed. One hundred years since the princess fell. One hundred years since the hero beat back the darkness, driving it into the heart of Hyrule Castle. Now Zelda wakes in the Chamber of Resurrection, and must reclaim her memory while setting right a world that she let go terribly wrong. Link waits for her; she cannot fail again.
1. The Chamber of Resurrection

She had slept without dreaming for so long that the fact of dreaming was, itself, a jolt. She knew she was dreaming (she always knew when she was dreaming, and how did she know that about herself when she knew so little else?) but clung fiercely onto the fact of the dream, not daring to wake up. She could feel the world outside of sleep, parallel to herself, and she did not know why but she knew that it was _wrong_ , that something outside of her sleep was more terrible than the worst of her dreams, and she was so _tired_ why shouldn't she keep sleeping?

A light grew within the darkness of her sleep, and she saw the shape of her dream: herself, in a vast dark expanse with no up or down. She didn't know how long she had been here, but the question was driven out by the golden light, and she found herself drawn to it. It was warm, familiar, important in a way she didn't understand.

A woman with golden hair called out to her from within the light. The woman stood out in the radiance, after a moment she realized the woman _was_ the radiance, beautiful in a way that made her suddenly terrified, hair the yellow of flames and eyes that shone like suns over a mouth shouting words she could not hear.

She tried to answer, but found she had no voice. She tried to reach out to the beautiful, terrible woman, but her arms would not move.

Desperation filled the woman's face, a storm of fear and frustration and anger and a kind of strangling hope, and the shout was repeated. Now it reached her ears, the smallest sound in the world, but even in the vast silence of her dream she could not make out the words.

So the woman shouted again, and again, reaching out with grasping hands, eyes wider and more pleading than ever, and the radiance grew blinding and she thought she saw _wings_ on the woman's back. What was this? Who was the woman, whose voice built to a roar and now the woman _was_ the dream, taking up the entirety of her awareness?

"Wake up!" The sound of thunder heard from miles and miles away, huge and terrible but faint, distant.

"You must wake up!" The stars were falling, she could see tears falling from a face that had known worlds of sorrow. She had to stop that, stop whatever was causing it.

"We're running out of time! You must wake up! You must wake up _now!_ "

So the god commanded her; so she did.

* * *

The light shifted as she woke, yellow fading to blue. The world snapped into clarity as her eyes focused. She felt warm, and light, and rested.

She was lying in a pool of luminescent blue fluid, which even now drained away. She sat up, looked down at her fingertips, saw the fluid recede. It left no residue, did not discolor her skin, but she could feel its temperature as if she were still submerged in it. A curious thing, suggesting a kind of thermal insulation property…that persisted once it was removed? Curious indeed.

Again she looked up, at the source of the blue light: a stone edifice beneath an opening in a large blue bulb, which was anchored to a much larger edifice above it, lines of luminescent piping like the arteries of an enormous heart running from it up and into the ceiling.

"Strange," she said, and the sound of her own voice was even stranger but she found herself better able to think as she spoke. "If the pipes connected to this bulb were carrying that fluid, and assuming this entire chamber wasn't flooded before I woke up…" She imagined herself floating inside of the bulb, sleeping, dreamless. "Something like amniotic fluid, perhaps." She got to her feet, found her legs steady but not quite as strong as she had expected. That told her the rest of it: she felt as if she had been completely sedentary, maybe even stationary, for an extended period. It was possible she had been a prisoner here, but that didn't seem to be congruent with how the fluid felt, and how she had been released by it.

"I was injured, then. And…badly, it would seem." This caused a quaver in some remote part of her thoughts, but when she reached for them she had no concept of why that would be so. "Badly enough to have lost my memory of the events. And." She stopped, because she realized then she didn't remember anything.

Well, no. That wasn't true. She had one thing.

"My name is Zelda." She looked around the chamber in which she had awoken. Left without prior knowledge to work with, she would need to build new conclusions based on the small observations she had made so far. "And I have to leave."

The room itself was arresting, composed of a very glossy, dark-colored stone she did not recognize, set with glowing orange lines and circles that suggested constellations. The walls were lined with pillars made of the same dark stone, encrusted with a much lighter stone which also formed both a path across the floor and the two objects at the far end: a waist-high pedestal that hummed with light of that same blue color, and a door that seemed to be made of interlocking stone slats. Curiosity took her to the pedestal in firm but slow steps.

As she stepped near to it, the pedestal flashed with blue light. She did not flinch, too arrested by the sound of stone grinding against stone as the center of the dais rose from the body, rotated into a new orientation, and then the process was repeated with a rectangular block, which then was lifted into a vertical position.

"A completely separate piece, distinct from the stone in which it is set." She leaned in and stepped around the pedestal, trying to see the object from different angles. "It has all the colors of the room, repeating the motifs of orange and blue lights, centered around what appears to be an eye." Without hesitation she reached out and grabbed it. Trying to lift it she found that it slid easily out of place, and though it was firm and heavy in her hand it was comfortable, familiar. She weighed it, feeling its mass as she rotated her wrists, and when the center of the slate (why was she using that word in particular?) shone with a new light she leaned in close, to observe it more carefully.

Then the door ground open, the interlocking slats drawing back into the walls. Without thinking she hooked the slate to her belt, stepping through the door.

She stood in a new chamber, in structure similar to the first but in contents very different: broken and empty crates, which seemed to have once held contents that long since had turned to dust, and two stone chests that looked as if they might have endured better. She went to the chests and opened them, huffing with the exertion of heaving the lids, and inside found a pair of worn trousers and a nearly-as-worn shirt. The boots that had been stored with the trousers were so old that the leather might as well have been wood, but it all looked to be about her size and the sense of warmth from the blue fluid was fading. She dressed, found the clothes comfortable if a bit light, and kept walking.

"This whole place is one chamber," she said to no one, the shape of the walls making it so her voice echoed back to her only very little. "There seem to be layers of locks and defenses that can only be opened from the inside, so it is not a prison. Whoever left me here," and she consciously made space for the idea that she might have done this to herself, as she had no memory to the contrary, "wanted to make sure that I could not be disturbed. Who am I, to have such treatment?" _You are Zelda_ , her own thoughts rejoined, and there was no answer to that.

At the end of the room was a second door, much larger than the first, and a new pedestal. Its appearance was different from its counterpart in the first chamber, covered in interlocking orange and blue lights surrounding an eye symbol identical to that on the slate she carried.

In another time, another place, another circumstance, a voice carried on golden winds would have directed the adventurer, but no such voice rang out to her, save in dreams. Her connection to the place was different, her understanding her own, and recalling how the slate had been set in the other room she held it up to this pedestal.

The pedestal hummed in a high voice, as if it were a sprite pleased with her intuition, and all the orange light shifted to blue.

"Blue and orange to blue and blue," she said, and looked up as the door began to shift. The eye symbol lit up in the same blue, stone pillars (they were much too big for her to call them slats) shifting out of their interlocking position and receding into the wall. Then the door rose, and the light from behind it was white and blinding, as bright as the light she had dreamed of, and she shielded her eyes from it. When her vision adjusted she looked and saw that there was a rising corridor that opened into the pale blue of the sky.

"Finally," she said, and stepped into the corridor. Her relief was quickly replaced by irritation: at the end of the first flight of steps she found a flat opening where more steps should have been; in place of stone here was grass, and soil, and standing water. To get out of the chamber she would have to scale a wall that was something like two and a half times her height. She could feel the impossibility in her limbs, the relative weakness in her legs. Maybe on her best day, but this certainly was not that.

"Well. I suppose one must deal with challenges as they present themselves."

She walked back into the previous chamber, taking stock of what was available to her: some whole crates that were much too massive for her purposes, some decrepit crates that she would probably destroy in attempting to use them, and some even _more_ decrepit barrels that still had their iron banding whole and in place, as unlikely as it seemed. One of these barrels she grabbed hold of and dragged across the chamber, praying that it would not fall to pieces as she did so. At the stairs she lifted it more carefully, setting it down and straightening her grip after each step. It was a long time indeed before she reached the top of the flight, and then dragged it across stone, soil, water, and grass to set it at the foot of the wall.

"No," she said, weary but determined. "That won't be nearly enough." So back she went, for another barrel. Then another.

She did not rest; she knew that if she rested she would collapse, and that would not avail her anything yet. She lifted the third barrel by bracing it against the first, shoving it until it was stacked relatively neatly. So that was her support built: a barrel next to two barrels, standing like child's blocks.

"Not the steadiest-looking staircase," she said, pleased with herself in spite of her nerves and irritation and the way the old shirt was sticking unpleasantly to her as she sweat, "but I think it will do."

Carefully, as if she had never climbed anything in this way in her life, she hoisted herself atop the single barrel. It was unsteady under her shifting weight, and she could feel the wood creaking ominously even as she kept her feet on its rim. If not for the iron banding it probably would have flown apart by now. That image, of herself effectively trapped here, was foremost in her mind as she carefully gripped the stack of barrels next to her. She tested it by putting weight on her arms, estimated it was not _really_ any worse than the single barrel on which she now stood, and hoisted herself up.

She was instantly proven wrong as the entire thing began to sway, and then to buckle. Her first reaction was to panic, to flail; instead she got her feet under her, placed her hands onto the wall, and kicked off the barrel as hard as she could. She jumped, arms reaching over the top of the wall, and scrambled for purchase as she heard the splintering of wood and ringing of rusted iron falling into water behind her. She tried to find purchase with her feet, the worn leather of the boots sliding uselessly against the stone, and she could feel the roughness of the top of the wall tearing at the skin of her arms. For one brief, terrible second she thought she was going to fall, to break something and not be able to get up at all—and then her reaching right hand found a handhold, and her left another, and with panicked strength she heaved herself up and over, scrambling away from the edge and to a pile of dirt in front of the last staircase. Here she collapsed.

She lay panting for what seemed a very long time, and when her breathing slowed and her heart stopped pounding in her ears she felt the breeze coming from the top of the stairs, felt distant snatches of birdsong.

"OK." She got to her feet, tested herself, found she was in no danger of collapsing. "Almost there. I'll just get out of here, take note of my surroundings, then figure out what to do. _Then_ I can rest." Slowly, carefully, she went up the steps, or tried to. By the time she had reached the top she was taking them two at a time; by the time she came to the mouth of the corridor she had broken into a full run.

The world exploded into being all around her, overwhelming her senses with light and color and sound and sensation, a sense of place and reality so removed from where she had been a moment ago it was if she had awoken from another dream, her previous awakening only its own nested illusion. Trees on both sides of her, and the sun was high and the grass bowed gently in her passing as she ran forward. A cliff overlooked the land below it, and she stepped up to it, too enthralled to be afraid of its height.

There were no words for her; the wind took them away, carried her breath across verdant fields that stretched on forever. She could see for miles, miles and miles and miles, to the enormity of the mountains that framed the horizon, to a castle that lay far to the north, and out to the east…it was too much to take in, a scope that robbed her of her ability to analyze it. Not just a landscape but the whole world felt laid out in front of her, and in that one glorious moment she knew that she had never felt or known freedom like this in her entire life. For that one moment she forgot her dream, the cave, her name, the urgency of a woman's words calling out to her from across the gap of time.

Then, as she looked east, she saw a path leading from where she stood, running down a hill toward what looked like an enormous temple. Partway down the path she saw a person, a man with a huge and snowy beard, and she laughed as she waved to him.

He did not seem to acknowledge her, though he looked straight at her. He turned, walking down the path to a fire that was set underneath a stone outcropping. She could not read his body language from that distance, but something about him struck her as sad.

That gave her pause. Was her presence disturbing to him? Was he a local, and she an intruder?

"It doesn't matter," she said to herself, as much for the assurance as for the speaking of fact. "I need directions, food, and shelter. Maybe he can provide one, if not all."

Not knowing why she did so, she took a moment to comport herself, to call up a well of dignity that spoke calmness and surety to anyone who would see her. With that posture she walked down the path, to speak seriously with the old man at his fire.

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S**_ **NOTE** **:** Credit for the cover image goes to nobodytheelf on Tumblr. You can find the full-size version at: tumblr dot come slash post/190377290784/finished-one-of-my-favorite-commissions-to-date


	2. The Great Plateau

The light from the fire did not reach far, though it did not need to with the morning sun still hanging in the sky. The old man was sitting close to it, though the day was warm enough that it should have been uncomfortable. These things she noted, tried to draw some correlation between them, and came up a bit short. Strange that the bearded stranger should have a fire going this early in the day, and no real way to reconcile it.

When she stepped near he looked up, his expression surprised. "Oh-ho! Well met, stranger!"

In the space between his breaths Zelda stopped, and she thought. She was nearly positive he had seen her as she looked down at the rest of the landscape; why feign surprise? Or maybe he hadn't actually seen her, and that was why he hadn't waved? Could the light have played a trick on his eyes? No, the sun had been behind him. Could he have simply failed to see her due to poor vision? If so, why had he been looking _right at her_?

"Good morning, sir," she said. "I saw you from atop the cliff, and hoped you might be able to help me. I'm" _confused hungry exhausted alone ill amnesiac_ "lost."

He nodded, his beard lending him an air of solemnity deeper than the casting of his face. "It is a terrible thing, to be lost. Few are the intersection of perils more demanding or concrete, especially with the world as it is now." In his right hand he was holding a walking stick, from which hung a lantern; with this he motioned to the other side of the fire. "Here, sit with me and we will talk. You'll find a baked apple by the fire. Feel free to partake."

Her eyes cut to where he indicated, and there she saw the apple, red and wrinkled and steaming, sitting a comfortable distance away from the fire's heat. "I would not want to impose on you," she said, a formality running counter to the demands of her hunger.

His face was genuinely warm, and for some reason it made her relax. There was an earnestness in his expression, despite his strangeness. "Please. I can always gather more apples, and I have already had my fill. I will be much happier for the conversation than to have an extra apple I can't even eat."

She sat on the grass, taking the apple in her hand. It was warm to the touch, and even unseasoned the smell emanating from it was rich and deep and still tart. Wiping it on her shirt to remove ash or soil, she bit into it, and it tasted as it smelled: sweet, the sugar of the apple turning to a thin syrup, but still tart and fresh and aromatic. She wondered how long it had been since she had eaten, and if that was why she was enjoying it so much, the relief of the first bite so sharp it brought tears to her eyes. The apple was enormous, as big as both of her fists held together, and she knew she was going to eat every part of it but its stem.

"You said you were lost," the old man suggested, his tone relaxed but curious as she ate. "I'm just an old hermit, but I've made my place here for a long, long time. Where are you going?"

The question was a fair one, but also potentially dangerous. She had no memory of who she was, or where, or how she came to be there; she did not think that she had enough information to construct a lie to hide the extent of her ignorance. That ignorance was vulnerability, but to let someone else know about it was a _separate_ vulnerability all on its own, giving them power over her. Could she risk that? Could she mitigate it somehow?

She swallowed carefully, decided that she could not hide everything and still gain useful knowledge, and said, "It's less that I don't know where I'm going. I don't know where I _am_."

"No?" Surprise again, but not too sharp, as if her ignorance of place was not wholly unexpected. "I'll tell you, then. We are on the Great Plateau. Legend says that this is the birthplace of the kingdom of Hyrule."

"Hyrule," she said, because the name echoed inside of her mind, seeking a place that it did not have.

"Yes. We're near the center of the kingdom, though this place is not as it once was." He gestured with his staff again, indicating down the path, to an enormous and dilapidated stone building that looked like a temple or cathedral. "Do you see that structure? Once, it was the site of holy ceremonies that were central to the culture of this land. Now it stands ravaged and forgotten." He sighed through his nose. "Like so much in this place."

She had no answer, and he did not urge her for more, so she continued eating. Faster than she would have thought she finished the apple, core and all, and dropped the stem onto the grass. "Thank you for sharing with me," she said, rising to her feet, "and for your help."

"Not at all! There is plenty to share here, if you know how to look for it. You'll find the plateau full of apples in need of only a little warmth."

She nodded to him, and stepped back onto the path. She could have asked for better directions, but now she had enough information to get by, at least for a while. He said he was a hermit, but even hermits usually lived near enough to civilization, and she was confident she would be able to find a town or settlement so long as she could reach a high enough vantage point. She was in no hurry—and for whatever reason, that thought was immensely satisfying.

She had only walked a few steps when the old man said behind her, "Wait a moment." She turned, and he got up from his seat, walking over to the wall of the outcropping where she saw a torch was leaned. He picked it up, walked over to her, held it out. "Take this with you."

"Sir?"

"A torch is a useful thing to have. It can light your way in the dark, be used to perpetuate or create a fire, and in a pinch…" Here his expression darkened, his bushy eyebrows knitted together as if he was struggling with something. "In a pinch it can be a weapon." He gestured with the torch. "Here, don't be shy. I have more I can use for myself."

"Oh. Well." She reached out, took it from his hand, found the indirect contact between them both reassuring and off-putting at once. "Thank you. I will try to make use of it." The operative word there being _try_ ; she was not sure if she could make a fire by herself.

"One last thing, please, and then you can go on your way without having to listen to my prattle." He gestured with his staff again. "The path here is… not entirely safe." Her surprise must have shown on her face, then, because he nodded at her. "I see you understand. There is one beast in particular that likes to lie in wait in the bushes, eyes on the path, and to attack travelers with the branch of a tree. You'll find an axe in a stump a little way down the path. Take it with you. Are you much of a warrior, miss?"

She shook her head; no point in hiding that, not with how she could feel the color draining from her face, how aware she was of the relative weakness of her limbs. No, whatever she had been before, a warrior was not it.

"Then use your awareness to your advantage. The beasts that occupy the plateau are dangerous and in some cases cunning, but they are not very observant. Aware, any of them is a match and more for the average well-armed traveler," and here his posture changed, in a way that was very difficult to identify but very easy to perceive, as he pulled back his shoulders and stood straighter and tilted his head back, "but the greatest element one can have in a conflict is surprise. If they do not know you are there, you can get past them. Do you understand?" She nodded. His posture relaxed, and his smile was genuine and warm and so weary that she almost wanted to embrace him. "Good. Be safe." He turned, walking back to his fire and resuming his seat.

She stared at him for what felt an impolite length of time, but he never looked up. The idea of beasts attacking lone travelers banged around in her head, and the sharpness and enormity of her vulnerability fell on her so concretely that she could not believe she hadn't perceived it before. What was she doing out here, alone? Why had she been thrust into this situation, which she more and more suspected she was not equipped to deal with? The dizzying freedom she had felt before talking to the old man and even during the conversation had given way to something else, a cloudy anxiety that colored how she saw the world as she looked down the path. The shadows were deeper, now, though the sun had grown no brighter, and the green of the trees that had symbolized life now held more dangers than she would have believed, before. She considered staying with the old man, asking him to travel with her, to ask for directions, to give up on the idea of doing all of this—whatever _this_ was, but she knew there was something—on her own. It would be simpler to have companionship, and safer. It might slow things down, but…

 _But a golden voice called to her across the vastness of the dark and she remembered how the woman had plead_.

She walked down the path. Her nerves were no more still, her confidence driven to no greater heights, but still she walked. In a little time she came to the promised tree stump, and the promised axe with its head buried there. With effort she wrenched it free, holding it, feeling its weight in her hands before putting it on her back. An axe was a good thing to have, she told herself, even if she wasn't sure she had the strength to use it as a weapon. You could use it to cut firewood, to sharpen sticks, probably even to start fires somehow, if you were creative. Yes. It was a good thing to have, even if not as a weapon.

She put the axe on her back, adjusted the straps of her shoulder harness, and walked down the path.

* * *

The sunlight filtered through the foliage in dappled patterns, making the air cooler than it had been on the path. When she focused on that, Zelda found that it was easier to keep down her sense of impending panic.

The line of trees on the left side of the path had been where the beast the old man mentioned would be waiting, she was sure; there was no cover on the other side. The trees weren't very deep, either, nestled between the path and a steep drop down a cliff, which meant that whatever the thing was it had to be in a narrow band if it wanted to keep a clear eye on the road. When she had come to the trees she'd immediately ducked into them, keeping low and quiet as she stalked through the grass between the ancient trunks. She wasn't sure how quiet she was actually being, but the grass and ground were soft and she was keeping a careful eye out so as not to step on any fallen sticks or dry leaves. The effort of being that quiet was draining, but it was better than the alternative; the weight of the axe against her back was more of a burden than a promise, and she was more sure than ever that she wouldn't be able to swing it in defense if it came to that. Fine. It didn't matter if she could stay out of the thing's sight and hearing.

 _Assuming it can't smell you. Or hasn't laid some sort of trap. Or that it doesn't have senses that you don't even have a name for, according to stimuli that your brain wouldn't understand_.

Yes. Assuming all of that, she crept.

The birds were lively and full-throated and happy on the Great Plateau, and she had found their song to be very calming, relatively speaking, for the past few minutes. Now she was grateful to them for another reason: they provided another layer of sound over her own footsteps, partially masking any mistakes she was making. She hoped that they would sing to each other all the louder for it.

A twig snapped, and Zelda froze mid-step.

She looked down, even though she had heard it come from her right, closer to the road. Nothing at her feet to make noise. She crouched lower, suddenly aware of herself, of the lines of sight that might reveal her to something stalking her. She looked to her right, straining to see.

There, in the tall grass, a flash of red and brown.

She raised herself, just enough, trying to see more, ready to bolt if she had to. Her legs still felt weak, but if she was chased she would run like she'd never run in her life. Great triangular red ears, like the ears of a pig, set on top of a broad red head. She was behind the thing, which even as she watched broke the twig it had been holding with another clean _snap_ , so she could not see its face. What she did see were the corded muscles that ran along its spine and shoulders, the ease with which it lay in wait, the stick it held while waiting for prey to come by.

The axe weighed her down, and the thought of trying to hold it made her nauseous. Staying low, staying quiet, never stepping too quickly, she hurried away.

* * *

When she came to the end of the copse she stepped out, still crouched and quiet even though she was confident she was out of sight of the thing in the bushes. The sun had risen higher, now, and the day was getting warmer though it would never get beyond pleasantly cool.

"It's all right," she told herself, using her voice, the fact of making noise, to force herself into being convinced. "I'm past it, now, and don't need to hide anymore." She straightened her posture, taking careful note of what she was carrying: the torch, the axe, a few apples she had picked up while escaping through the trees. "I'm much more well-equipped than I was before I went in."

True though that was, she wasn't confident she was any more _prepared_ , especially because she did not know where she wanted to go next. "Well. Lacking any other direction, the old man did say that the temple used to be an important place. If I explore it, I might be able to find more resources, even directions. Or, at least I can find some shelter."

Convinced of the rightness of this course of action, she turned down the path, and immediately saw a speck of red in the distance. From this distance she couldn't tell what it was, but it looked like another thing like that which had been in the brush.

Without thinking she took the slate from her hip, held it up in front of her face by the handles, and pressed a button on the side of it. It hummed, then clicked, the front of it lighting up and displaying a zoomed in perspective as if the slate were also a looking glass. She had been right, too: another one of those red creatures, though this one she could see much more clearly. Bipedal, wearing clothing, hunched over as if it were unable to stand straight, bright red, porcine facial features, and carrying a club that looked quite a bit more refined and dangerous than a stick.

Then she realized what she was doing and forgot utterly about the beast.

"Oh!" She turned the slate in her hands, watching as the perspective displayed on it shifted with its orientation. "Fascinating! It seems this device has more uses than I had given it credit for." She crouched down, setting it on her knees, watching as the image of the ground shifted from blurriness to clarity in less than a second. "A self-correcting focus. It can detect distance, then? What else can you do, I wonder…" She turned it over in her hands again, taking note that there were various buttons on the face and top of the slate. She pressed on these experimentally, which caused the slate's screen to shift through several displays that she didn't understand. Mostly they seemed to be empty, with a small notation that read in Hylian "The Sheikah Slate has been damaged."

"Damaged, are you…and now I have a name." She flipped through several more screens, wondering at the functionality that was missing from it. If it could display images obtained through some sort of lens, the question of what else it could do set a fire in her brain. She could be holding an artifact of untold sophistication, but be utterly unable to meaningfully interact with it! In a fit of pique she kept flipping back and forth across the device's screens, wondering at them but never sticking for too long. Then one gave her pause.

The screen was mostly blank, with blue grid lines to indicate the scale of something that wasn't entirely clear to her. A small yellow dot inside of a large dot flashed in one section of the grid, while a yellow triangle pointed at nothing in particular.

"Plainly this is meant to indicate something, but what? Is it related to the device's other functions? Its viewing mode?" She raised it up, as if to look through its lens at the beast in the distance, but the screen did not change. For no reason she could name she swept it to the side, as if taking in a panorama, and as she did so the triangle began to rotate.

She had to keep herself from shouting in surprise and delight to have it respond to her. She jumped to her feet, forgetting the sense of dread and danger that had so badly oppressed her before, and swung the slate around. The triangle on the display matched her degree of rotation perfectly.

"I see! So if the triangle indicates the orientation of the sheikah slate, or perhaps the person holding it, then that would mean that the blinking circle…" She shifted her position, holding the slate up in front of her, looking between the horizon and its screen as she turned. "Now, assuming reasonable scale of distance," and by that she meant assuming that it wasn't indicating an object that was not on the plateau, "if I orient myself properly, I find…" The triangle, which she now thought of as an arrow, swung into perfect alignment with the circle. She looked into the distance and saw a pile of rubble. "I hope it's not as simple as that." Swapping back to the viewing functionality, she zoomed in on the spot, then could not fight the grin that muscled its way onto her face. "Perfect."

What seemed to be a pile of rubble was in fact a series of large stone sheets partially obscuring an artificial structure beneath them. With her naked eyes she couldn't tell clearly, but through the slate she saw that the structure was apparently made of the same stone as the chamber she had woken up in, and therefore linked to the sheikah slate.

"It even has the proper color of lights." She closed the viewer on the slate and returned it to her hip. "Well then! If my journey started with the slate, it only makes sense that it should guide me further." Thoughts of the temple were totally forgotten, and the presence of the red beasts only floated at the edge of her awareness, troubling her only very little. The potential of discovering some great secret, solving some ancient puzzle which no one else had, made her steps light as she walked down the path and along the ridge toward the wide plain where her destination waited.

* * *

There were more of the monsters than she had previously assumed, but after seeing that they rarely looked up from their own routines she became much less afraid. She stayed low when near them, still, and was as quiet as she could make herself, but the old man had been right: they simply weren't very observant. Two seated at the bottom of a ravine seemed to be speaking in a language she couldn't comprehend, and she thought idly that if she were strong enough to shift one of the boulders atop the ravine then they probably wouldn't even see it coming.

When she came down to the flatter part of the plateau where the ruins were located, she stopped at the head of a wide and ruined staircase to observe the route she intended to take. On the right—the south—was an open path that lead near to an _enormous_ skull, easily the size of a building, and she wondered what kind of beast could have a head that large but did not think on it for too long because the monsters had apparently set up a watch around it.

"They have sentries and guards, and can build towers. What sort of society and culture do they have, I wonder? Clothing, weapons…"

Swinging the slate back toward her destination, she noted two of the beasts standing atop a knoll off to the northeast.

"Their lines of sight there would be quite long, and they have… are those bows?" She clicked her tongue, wishing for the ability to zoom in closer on the slate. "Hard to say, but if they are then they're handmade. Still, it would be best to avoid them if possible…" She looked toward the ruin itself, sucking air through her teeth. "Oh."

In front of the entrance to the ruins, before what appeared to be the only opening in the rubble, was another one of the beasts. This one was clearly guarding the entrance, and compared to its fellows it was more dangerously armed: in its left hand it carried a crude shield, and in its right it held not a club but a _sword_.

"Stolen, maybe? Everything else they carry appears to be handmade. But that doesn't matter; stolen or not, the fact that it carries a sword suggests that it knows how to use it, and it may be the martial superior to its fellows." She closed the view on her slate, put it back on her hip, thought for a moment. "Based on its posture, sneaking in behind it would be too risky. These things never seem to focus on one subject for very long, so it may turn and discover me before I've discovered whatever is special about those ruins." The words of the old man, that any of these things was a match for a well-armed traveler, stuck in her mind. "Perhaps it would be easier to seek out the temple, then." But no, there had been another of them there, too. Less well-armed, but much more mobile, much more eager in its patrolling. If she was ever going to see any part of this plateau, some degree of confrontation seemed inevitable.

Putting it that way made her stomach lurch, and for one wild moment she thought she was going to be sick.

She breathed, and it passed, and she started her walk down the half-buried steps.

* * *

She swung north, darting between fallen pillars and ruined walls, keeping a careful watch for any watchful eyes. On her left she saw a pond, and beyond that what looked like an encampment for the beasts, but they were too far to see her unless they were looking.

She made her way across the field in that fashion, swinging around to approach the rubble from the northern side, so the stones lay between her and the sentry. She was too far away to be spotted by the bow-beasts, but she crept carefully anyway, mindful that if she was wrong then she would also quickly be dead. She pressed herself against the stone of the rubble as she rounded it, not feeling its warmth, too mindful of her own movements and trying to make sure she did not betray herself with noise. At last she came to a stone that she judged to be in the right spot, and peered around it with all the slowness in the world.

There, facing away from her, the red beast with its sword and shield. It swung its head back and forth, sniffing at the air, and she wondered again if it might smell her, if she was upwind of it, if she could outrun the thing, burdened as she was with the axe. They were _everywhere_ , all over the plateau, and if an open chase started then getting completely away from them would be impossible. They would surround her, and bring her down, and

And she grabbed hold of that thought and strangled it, tossing it onto the rubbish heap at the back of her mind. Let her amnesia take _that_ , and she would have no more like it. Fear, she told herself but did not dare to say out loud, had no place in what she was doing. She didn't know what that _was_ , precisely, but she did know that one did not simply wake up in the middle of mysterious rooms and have precious artifacts left for you without some sort of purpose. Purposes, by their very nature, needed to be fulfilled, so fulfill it she would. No matter what that meant.

The beast yawned. Zelda loosened the strap holding the axe to her back, and took it in both of her hands. It was heavy, _very_ heavy, but she had tested it earlier and knew it to be freshly sharpened, too. The beast scratched itself, and she crouched low.

 _Quick and quiet_ , she told herself, _quick and quiet, quick and quiet, quick and quiet!_ But mostly quiet, quiet first, she told herself as her feet moved, bringing her closer and closer. She shifted her hold on the axe, praying, _praying_ to she knew not what gods that the sweat on her hands would not be enough to ruin her grip, that the bow-carrying sentries would not wander in this direction, that the creature would not turn to face her, she raised the axe as she came within five paces and she could _feel_ it, she could feel it _feeling her there_ , it was going to turn around it was going to turn around _NOW_ —

The impact of the axe's head against the creature's spine sent a shock up her arms. It did not cry out; it dropped, limp, and moved no more. The axe was still buried in its back as it lay motionless, its sword and shield falling softly to the earth.

She covered her mouth with her hands. She could not know this, but it was the first time she had ever killed anything herself; the person she was before had never even intentionally swatted at horseflies. The echo of this fact rebounded inside of her, over and over, having no perspective with which to anchor itself and tell her why her head was filled with a scream the creature had not voiced. She crouched low, tried to stop herself from shaking. _This is relief_ , she said to herself, and on some level this was true.

While Zelda tried to control this upwelling of a feeling she could not fully identify and did not understand, a creeping darkness poured out from within the wound on the creature's back, quickly suffusing the entire body so that no light cast any of its features into relief. It was like looking at an emptiness left in space.

Then it burst, silently, into smoke and purple-colored vapors. Two objects clattered to the ground, left behind in its passing. Zelda stared at this, and it was ultimately her curiosity that sank its hooks into her and pulled her along. It was hard, harder than it should have been, to creep toward the spot where the creature had fallen, to cross those few steps. But cross it she did, and her relief and terror and fear and shame was slowly pushed aside as she came closer to the spot. Firstly and lastly she was curious, firstly and lastly she had to _know_.

"Gone," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Gone as if it had never been here in the first place. How? Some kind of sorcery? Are these things _composed_ of magic, though they behave according to the laws of flesh?" She reached to the two objects that had fallen in the creature's passing. Her hands were shaking, still, and she glared at them, willing them still so that she could examine more confidently. Once she was satisfied that she would drop nothing, damage nothing, she picked up the two objects, one in each hand, and turned them in front of her face. "A tooth, and… a horn. Clean, as if they were bleached, as if they were not anchored in a living thing only moments ago. So… perhaps they were not. Perhaps these things are not genuinely alive in the first place. But… hm, too many questions." She put the tooth and horn in a pouch on her belt, cinched it shut. She picked up her axe, strapped it to her back again, started to turn and leave.

"No," she said. "No, the sword and the shield. You might have need of better tools to protect yourself." So she picked these up, and strapped them to her back too. Heavy, but not so heavy as she would have thought.

Zelda stopped, still crouched, and breathed, trying to take inventory of her own thoughts. She was still upset, yes, but the nature of the creature had alleviated that somewhat. Maybe later she could stop and examine why so much of that shock had been replaced by relief, but on some level she guessed that she had already started thinking of the crimson beasts as being _evil_ rather than properly living. That was unfair, and she would need to examine it for later, but right now, _in this moment_ she needed that surety to keep walking. She took it.

She rubbed her face with her hands, wishing desperately for a handkerchief, and turned back to the ruin. Now, at last, she would be able to find _something_.

She walked quietly, because it had become a quickly-learned habit rather than out of necessity, but she need not have. When she stepped into the shadow of the ruins, she saw a pedestal much like the one that had been in the chamber where she had woken up. The orange light, the absence of both blue and the symbol of the eye, the _difference_ , sent a pleasant chill up and down her arms.

"Place the Sheikah Slate in the pedestal." The voice that emanated from the pedestal was high and pleasant, its diction precise and clipped and strange. This should have shocked her; she was quickly discovering that very little could, now.

"Is that what you want," she said, leaning in, tilting her head back and forth. Indeed, there was a recess in the center of the pedestal roughly in the shape of the slate. She spent a few seconds thinking this over, wondering if she would be able to get the slate _back_ , but ultimately deciding that trading ignorance for knowledge was quite the bargain. "So be it. But I expect you will return it."

The voice gave no answer.

"Very well." She took the slate from her hip and placed it, oriented vertically, in the standing slot meant to receive it. As soon as she did the entire device tilted back until it was flush with the surface of the pedestal and then it rotated with a pleasant _click_ , so that the blue eye on the back of the slate stood out against the orange light surrounding it. The raised center of the pedestal sank in further until it too was flush with its base, and as it began to rotate she recognized that she was watching the reverse of the motions that had given her the slate in the first place.

The machine settled into place, and the orange lights glowed brighter.

"Sheikah Tower activated." The same crisp, strange pronunciation.

"What is a Sheikah Tower?"

Ignoring her, the voice continued, "Please watch for falling rocks."

She looked up out of instinct. "The rocks here seem _quite_ settled." As she was looking, she saw that the pedestal was sitting beneath an arch-like structure constructed of similar stone, and on that structure the eye symbol began to glow.

Then the earth shook, and it occurred to her that falling rocks _could_ be a problem.

Then the earth heaved beneath her and her weakened legs gave out and she fell backward and her head slammed into the stone.

* * *

On the great plateau the bokoblins looked up in confusion and terror as the earth heaved, and when the sheikah tower rose into the sky it sent a hail of stone in every direction. This was a signal.

It was a signal to the other towers all over Hyrule, each of which rose from the earth in answer to their long-awaited summons.

It was a signal to a village in the mountains of Necluda, where an old woman looked out from beneath her wide-brimmed hat and felt new life breathed into a hope that had very nearly died.

It was a signal to that village's sister community, where men and women in red uniforms donned masks of rotated eyes, knowing that their time was at hand.

It was a signal to the world that something was shifting, that the perilous stalemate of a century was coming to an end.

It was a signal to the beast within the castle, which screamed in fury and defiance as the world moved to stifle it. It pushed against the very seams of creation, and the earth and sky both groaned with the effort of containing its fury. So long it had been held, and now that time was coming to an end, one way or another.

* * *

She knew none of this; she was dreaming again, and knew it as soon as the dream began.

There was no preamble now, no gentle shifting from darkness to light; the woman was before her in all radiance, and she knew that she was looking upon a goddess. The woman's eyes were soft, warm, gentle, sorrowful beyond imagining. There was an enormity of experience there, an enormity of burden and of pain, which echoed inside of Zelda as surely as if she had experienced it herself.

"You have," the goddess said, "and will again."

"I do not know where I am," Zelda said, and the many ways in which that were true hung in that space, and the goddess nodded in her perfect understanding.

"We are of one heart. Know this: a terrible evil threatens Hyrule, and it grows more terrible by the day. You have slept for one hundred years, my Zelda, and in that time the world has stood on the edge of utter annihilation. You must stop it. You must save the world, and everyone in it."

"But," and that word was everything, but she had to add more to it. "But I can't do that! I don't know who I am, but I do know _what_ I am: I'm weak, and frightened, and I have hands that have never done real work!"

The goddess's eyes blazed, suns set in a sea of gold, but she did not look away from them. This intensity was not ire; it was compassion. "I know. But even so, you will do it. There is no one else who can, and time—your time, _our_ time—grows perilously short." Hands as large as the world reached out for Zelda, embraced her, enfolded her on a scale she didn't understand, pulled her against the goddess's shoulder. In that embrace, the goddess was no larger than Zelda herself. "Your burden is the heaviest of all burdens, save only one, but I know you can carry it. I know you _will_ carry it."

She realized she was weeping, some unremembered familiarity lancing through the part of her mind that was still sleeping, and she did not know why she wanted to stay here, only that she did. "I am so afraid."

"Fear is only one of the many obstacles before you, daughter, but it is both the greatest and the one that will never leave you. It will be your companion and your nemesis. It will guide you and mislead you, by turn. I cannot take it from you, and for that I am sorry."

"How? How am I supposed to do this?" The warmth, the familiarity, was overwhelming. She knew this light, this voice, this embrace, this feeling of belonging and being.

Hands as vast as the world gently moved her away, and her perspective shifted again, and once more she was looking at a woman whose light could fill the cosmos. "You will know what you have to do, but you must remember."

The light grew greater, and the darkness with it, and Zelda panicked as she realized she was waking up.

"Remember," the goddess said.

* * *

"Try to remember."

She awoke, and the goddess was gone. Zelda still had her words, though the timber of her voice was fading, the warmth of being held by her. She tried to hold onto those memories, but they were slipping, as dreams do. She wished she could write them down, didn't know how much it would do.

Behind her the pedestal pronounced that it was gathering information from the surrounding environment. She knew, remotely, that it was gathering up knowledge in a liquid state and transferring it to her slate, that the slate functionality was either being expanded or restored, but in that moment she had no thought to spare for it. The words of the goddess echoed in her mind and she looked north, north to a castle.

Even from this distance she could tell it was beautiful and that it was _wrong_. The castle itself, the surrounding city, even the countryside was couched in a whirling miasma as thick as smoke and much more persistent. Black and purple dominated the light in that space, much like the beast that she had felled. As she looked the darkness built up, up, the miasma whipped into a frenzy, and in the distance she heard a _roar_.

Then, above the roar, above the darkness, there was a light. As she watched the miasma whirled and thinned, and the gathered darkness dissipated. Light exploded from the castle's keep, a ( _cleansing_ , the light was _cleansing_ ) blue light that stilled the earth with a song that rang out in an ancient voice. The earth shook once more, and there was another roaring bellow, but that voice drowned it out.

She was crying again. She did not know why, but knew that she would find out.

Zelda wiped her eyes, turned back to the sheikah slate, retrieved it. It now displayed a topographical map for the entire plateau, and informed her that more towers would expand its available data. She would need to remember to visit them, but for now she put the slate back on her hip.

The tower's rise had put her very high in the air, and momentarily she thought that perhaps she was trapped there, but a golden light bearing a golden voice was still clear in her mind. She found the one opening in the floor, judged that she would break her legs if she tried to jump to a lower platform, and began the slow climb down to it instead.

Slowly, methodically did she descend, each time judging the distance to the next platform down, each time climbing as carefully as she was able, each time stopping to rest only briefly. The tower was more of a pillar of stone shot through with glowing veins of blue ore, surrounded by a sort of stone mesh that provided good hand and foot holds, but the climb itself was still long and difficult. About halfway down she ate an apple, decided she would need to gather more (and cook them, at that).

It was nearly three hours before she reached the ground. She was congratulating herself when she heard a call, and turned, and saw the old man sailing down on some device she didn't recognize. It would be good to have. She stepped forward to meet him.

"My, my. It would seem we have quite the enigma...here." Something in her face must have given him pause, whatever he was prepared to say dropping away from him. "What is it?"

"I need to reach the castle to the north," she said, because it was true. "I think I will need your glider to do it. You have been very generous to me, and I am sorry that I must depend on your generosity again, but I would have it."

His expression was carefully controlled, but for some reason she found him familiar, could read the subtleties of his face where others might not have been able to, fractions of expressions that told her that he was reconsidering her, weighing her. That familiarity itched at her, but she said nothing. Instead it was he who continued, "Would you be willing to work for it?"

She felt the weight of the axe on her back, thought of the weight of the sword and shield as she picked them up, how they would feel in her hands. The words of the goddess were still with her, though she could not remember the face, and the sense of belonging was fuzzy and indistinct. But more than either of those, more than both put together, she thought of an ancient voice singing a single note that would forefend annihilation, and a radiant blue light that stood at the threshold of the dark, beating back the doom of the world. This last, this last most of all, she knew mattered.

"Tell me what I have to do."


	3. Leaving the Great Plateau

The structure that stood on the other side of the sunken pond, beyond the camp of monsters, was plainly of the same origin as the slate and the chamber where she had awoken (she did not remember what the word meant but she had already begun to call them "sheikah" in her head). The eye motif was there, though all the lights were in orange. As she stepped on it she took note of the circular platform before what seemed to be yet another locked door, and the pedestal that seemed so much more simplistic than the others she had interacted with so far. She held the slate to it, and the orange lights there turned to blue, giving the eye a sense of wakefulness.

"Sheikah Slate recognized," the pedestal said, and she did not respond to it. The circle behind her lit up, and she turned to look at it as the voice continued, "Travel Gate activated. Access granted." The door opened with the sound of stone sliding across stone, but she did not pay it any particular mind; the door would be there in a few minutes.

"What is a travel gate?" She did not walk toward the glowing circle, not knowing exactly what it did, instead crouching next to the pedestal and setting the slate on her knees and flipping through the various screens. "Perhaps it's related to the… ah." A new icon had appeared on the map, indicated the spot where she stood, or perhaps the structure itself. "The Oman Au shrine. Interesting. So this is the face of a shrine, and it is named, and it is known to the Sheikah Slate somehow. I wonder if there is more information to be gleaned…" Carefully and precisely she tapped on the icon for the shrine, and was presented with new text: "Travel" and "Cancel." Supposing that it would perhaps lay out a topographically accurate path for her to take, she tapped on the word "Travel" with her finger.

There was a sound, high and clear and buzzing, and she was engulfed in blue light. She looked down at her hands and saw that the light was streaming off of her, she was _becoming_ the light, and she was so fascinated by it that she did not panic as she unraveled utterly and the ribbons of blue radiance soared into the sky.

Seconds later they recoalesced atop the blue circle, and once they had resumed her shape she snapped back into being, solid and material. She had moved a total of six feet.

She instantly hit the travel button again, and the process repeated itself. This time she had not moved at all.

"Oh dear."

She got up, ran behind the shrine, and traveled again.

Then she ran off to a distance of fifty paces and traveled again.

Then she jumped into the pond, holding the sheikah slate over her head, waded out into its center, and traveled again.

It was only after this last, when she coalesced in front of the shrine, still soaked with pond water, that she allowed herself to stamp her feet and smother her laughter with her hands.

"This is amazing! An instantaneous transportation system! Oh, I wonder if it has limitations on its range? It doesn't seem to have trouble with going through matter, so if the range is long enough… this could change _everything!_ " Even ignoring that this was probably a known technology, just the way that it affected how she intended to move through the world, even alone, was enormous. "If travel only needs to happen in one direction, then in very little time I could create a network of travel gates that would allow me to travel back and forth freely across… _untold_ distances!" There was an icon for the tower that she had just climbed down, the Plateau Tower, and she saw that she could travel there too. She nearly did, just to test if the range was long enough.

The only thing that kept her from traveling back and forth between those two points for most of a day was the sudden realization that this secret had been revealed to her _outside_ of the shrine, and in fact was only the key needed to open the shrine's _door_.

"If this was here, out in the open, then what secrets are you hiding inside?" The old man's offer, his paraglider for the treasure in this shrine, was nearly forgotten: the knowledge contained herein could be far greater, and if it was anything like what she had just discovered then it might make the question of the paraglider moot.

Thus resolved, she stepped into the confines of the shrine, onto the lift in the rear, and rode down into the dark. She could not wipe the grin off of her face.

* * *

The lift carried her down into the earth, opening into an enormous subterranean chamber made from titanic blocks of clean-cut stone, so huge that she wondered how they had been transported, much less assembled in this way. The symbols and architecture of sheikah construction were everywhere: glowing blue lamps that glowed brighter than fire, an omnipresent luminescence that lit up what felt like the entire world while being gentler than the sun, great stone gates that stood in the way of walking through the chamber, the encrusting stone that lent contrast and color to the dark construction, and _always_ the repeating motif of the great, watching eye.

"Fascinating." She tried to take the room in as she stepped off the platform—this simple act requiring her to step through a wall of suspended light that felt warm as she passed through it but offered no resistance otherwise. "How long has this been here, I won—"

"To you who sets foot in this shrine…" A great voice filled the chamber, seeming to come from everywhere, reverberating like singing that originated in the throat. "I am Oman Au. In the name of the Goddess Hylia, I offer this trial."

The name of the goddess was like a bell being rung, and she knew that it was the same goddess that spoke to her in her dreams, but the enormity of that was too much to handle at once so instead she called out:

"Hello? Are you the one who made this shrine?" A moment later, to herself, "No answer. Perhaps he cannot hear me. But if this is supposed to be a trial, is completing the trial how I obtain the treasure the old man said was here? Is the shrine itself here exclusively to hold the trial? And why is it being offered in the name of Hylia? And…" And why was that name sitting so warmly in her mouth, like molten light on her tongue?

She pushed the questions aside, because she had no basis by which to answer them or even address them, and if she could not do that then she could only come back to them later. Given this she surveyed the room; in the center were two enormous metal plates of dark hue, and in the corner a pedestal and structure much like the one that had raised the sheikah tower.

"Well. I hope you don't end up putting the entire shrine into the air. I've hit my head quite enough times today, I should think." Still, she recognized the pattern, and jogged across the enormous room, the Sheikah Slate in her hands before she reached the pedestal. It was slotted to receive the slate, of course, and when she put the slate in place it pleasantly clicked and spun until it was in an identical position to the pedestal on the tower. She braced herself, but the earth did not shake: instead there was a hum, a gathering of light at the spot where the structure was most directly over the slate.

"Just like before. Information stored in the form of light. I wonder what it would feel like to touch it…" But she dared not, and when the congealed information dripped down onto the slate with a sound like water, the slate glowed a brilliant blue. It chirped, and she leaned in closer as the screen shifted to one of the ones that had previously told her that the slate was damaged. An icon in a row of blank ones filled in with a red shape she didn't recognize, almost like a stylized horseshoe, and then text faded in to accompany it.

"Magnesis. Manipulate metallic objects through magnetism." The words, when read aloud, did not sound like much, yet as she read them she could feel excitement building inside her as if it were about to explode. "Grab onto metallic objects with the magnetic energy that pours forth from the Magnesis rune. Objects held in the magnetic snare can be _lifted up and moved freely_."

"Rune extracted," the pedestal chirped, and lifted the slate to be removed. She took it, flipped to the available rune, activated it.

Viewed through the screen of the sheikah slate, the metal plates on the floor were highlighted in bright red.

"Does that mean that the slate can detect, at a distance, objects which a given rune is meant to interact with? Hmm." Her intention was to test the range of the device, to activate it and then step closer until it did whatever it was supposed to do; instead, when she engaged the rune, invisible (though displayed on the screen) lines of force reached out from the body of the slate, ensnaring the metal plate. "Further than I thought it would be able to do that. But how can it move freely, I wonder."

She had been expecting that there would be some resistance, some great effort that would require a level of physical strength that she did not have, but there was nothing; in being grabbed by the rune, the metal plate had been rendered effectively weightless, and by her command it was lifted to eye level with no apparent effort at all. She lifted it again, this time to twenty feet into the air. She lowered it, then raised it again. She moved it left and then right. She drew it toward her, then pushed it away. She turned and the rune swung the door around at great speed to keep it oriented in front of her, the arms of the magnetic force bending in her passage. She set the door down on the floor, near to the entrance, by deactivating the rune.

The second plate she lifted and held out from her as far as she could, turning and releasing the rune at the same time so it was flung with a crash into the far wall, hitting it so hard that the chamber shook.

She laughed like a child, openly happy and unworrying in a way that she hadn't laughed in a century and a decade and more, delighting in new possibilities and freedoms that this had opened. Suddenly the trial was not a trial, it was a game, and she clambered down the revealed ladder and ran across the lower chamber with its running water, clambering up the staircase and seeing that she was now in the adjoining chamber. She wondered if she could reach the plates from where she was standing, but she could not; just as well; she turned and found more to toss around. There was a metallic box in the corner, which she lifted as easily as lifting the slate and carried some two body lengths in front of her, just for the novelty of having that much power. A wall composed of stone blocks with a single metallic block in its center was met with a very high-velocity box, and she pulled out the metallic block and used it to shove against the remaining stones to make an easy path.

She was given pause by the machine beyond it, saw that there was a goal past that, and by its mien and location assumed it would be hostile. This resolved she hid behind a stone block, lifted the metallic block high into the air, maneuvered it over the machine (which shifted back and forth on its tendril-like legs, eye scanning its horizontal surroundings like a good sentry), and dropped it. The block fell, and the machine was crushed and then exploded, leaving behind a series of parts. She ran out, the feeling of playing a game still with her, and picked up what had been left behind—a single, comically enormous screw, of a make so fine she had trouble imagining how it had been produced.

"This rune, the _slate_ , is so much more than I had thought it would be. It's not just a method of viewing the world or cataloging it, it can be used to effect changes that are almost unbelievable! Objects ensnared by it seem to retain their mass while exerting no inertia: does that mean that the quality is removed from them? No, that doesn't seem so, otherwise I could not use one block to move the others so easily."

As she talked she walked past the machine, over a gap that was bridged by a third enormous metal plate. Without thinking she picked it up and swung it in front of her to bridge an identical gap on the platform's opposite side.

"In that case, the slate _must_ be exerting enough energy to overcome that inertia, while also making it so that I experience none of it while using it. It must exert that same degree of force _twice_ , first to do the actual motion and secondly as a buffer for its carrier. But what energy can do this? What powers it and can carry that much strength in such a small frame, if it is not mystical?"

Two metallic doors stood in front of her; one of these she grabbed and pulled back, and both swung open together.

At last, at last, the sight beyond the doors stilled her giddiness, made quiet the thoughts that had been running freely in her mind, slowed the beating of her heart, and made real again the world around her. She placed the slate back on her hip, and the quiet of that place was in her, too, as she stepped into the heart of the shrine.

This was the _real_ shrine, she knew, a holy place at the far end of a trial: a dais of stone, and on that a great stone block that made her think of a sarcophagus. Above it was a suspended roof that hung from a ceiling so high she could not see it, and a curtain of blue light surrounded the dais, closing it off utterly from the outside. Before the dais was a set of steps that lead up to a pulpit, so that she could stand before the shrine without being in risk of breaching its holy space.

But it was the man—if man it was—seated on the sarcophagus that struck her most firmly. Guessing at his age would have been impossible; he was beyond emaciated, his dark skin drawn tight against his bones, looking more like cured leather than human flesh. White hair was pulled back from his scalp, shaped into an enormous bun from which the rest of his hair hung loose, pooling on the dais around him and then off it, onto the floor behind him. He wore sack cloth trousers, no shirt, a necklace of huge stone beads shaped like the heads of spears, gold rings on his wrists, and on his forehead was painted the symbol of the eye. He was seated with his legs crossed, hands held up in a meditative pose that suggested the shape of a triangle.

"A sheikah," she said, so quietly that it could only be heard in her own ears. She did not know how that was true, but she did; whoever this was, he knew the secrets of the slate, and the temples, and probably a great deal more. "But… is he alive? Is this shrine also a crypt?"

She ascended to the pulpit, leaning in close to the dais, looking at the wall of light, unsure how much evil she was committing simply by being _present_. The question fell away, though, as she drew closer; out of the light the symbol of the eye coalesced.

"Is this what you want of me, then? The last pushing back of my fear, against taboo? Or is it just the unknown?" Curiosity made her reach out, held her hand as her fingertips brushed against the symbol of the eye.

The light rippled from the spot where she touched it, and the wall glowed in blue so bright it was nearly white, and then it burst with a sound like a bell being struck. Strands of blue light hung in the air, fading in moments, and then were gone.

"You have proven to possess the resolve of a true hero." That same voice, raspy and strange and aggressively human, reverberated from the entire chamber and she knew it was _his_ voice, this was the voice of the sheikah even if his mouth did not move for his speech. In truth he did not move at all, not even to open his eyes, and as she looked at him she could not help staring at the eye painted on his forehead, as if through this he might see her face. "I am Oman Au, the creator of this trial."

"I am Zelda," she said, though to speak in this man's presence felt… blasphemous, somehow. She wanted to say that she was not a hero, that she had not shown resolve, that she hadn't even been taking this seriously until she had seen him, but these would have been a much greater affront.

"I know who you are," he said, and there was recognition and something else, something almost sly, in his voice. "I am a humble monk, blessed with the sight of Goddess Hylia and dedicated to helping those who seek to defeat Ganon." His voice carried a smile that his face did not reflect.

"Hylia? _Ganon_?" both of these names were heavy, she knew that they carried an enormity that she did not understand.

"With your arrival, my duty is now fulfilled. In the name of Goddess Hylia, allow me to bestow this gift upon you… Please accept this Spirit Orb."

A flash of light from the monk's chest, and from the light issued a crystal orb, tinted purple, bearing a white crest she did not recognize. It moved without being touched, and she watched it with a cautious eye as it floated through the air toward her. She made to touch it with her hand but it ignored her, moving past her reaching hand, settling against her upper chest and disappearing in a flash of light. The light swirled through the air in dancing ribbons, and then these ribbons dove into the same place on her chest. She could _feel_ it there, the light, occupying the same space as her heart, and she had to tell herself not to panic as she touched there. If it were going to hurt her, it would have done so then.

"May the Goddess smile upon you," said the monk.

She lowered her hand, turned to face him more squarely, inhaled to speak—and then watched, transfixed, as he dissolved into light, into glowing green particles that drifted as if on a wind that only they could feel. In seconds he was gone, and he took all of his knowledge, all of his secrets, with him.

The enormity of the light was still there in her chest, but it did not hurt; she felt _infused_ , as if it had become a part of her, a new layer to her being that had been interwoven with what was already there.

She looked back at the shrine, now empty of its occupant and his secrets. She looked to the slate on her hip. She began her walk back to the entrance.

* * *

She emerged into the light of the sun, though the day was wearing on and soon night would fall. The old man was there, seated on a rock, lost in thought. He did not look up as she emerged, but she knew he was aware of her, could tell by the set of his shoulders.

"You have been on this plateau for a very long time," she said, and he looked up and he had that same measuring look again, but for some reason now she found it trying and wanted him to stop. "You knew that there was a treasure in this shrine, though I don't know if you knew what it was and, in addition, I don't know if I can give it to you. But I have learned things in this shrine, _discovered_ things I never would have guessed at before walking into it, and been shown the beginnings of answers to questions I did not know to ask. So:" and here she stopped to breathe in, to collect herself, "what do you know of the sheikah?"

He nodded, but did not rise. "The sheikah were once a highly advanced people, the spine of a civilization that made regular use of wonders we can scarcely imagine now. Their knowledge, their _technology_ , delivered the ancient land of Hyrule from peril more times than can be counted. Then, at some point in the distant past, their technology just… disappeared. I do not know why." He pulled at his beard, momentarily lost in thought. "Are you so interested in sheikah technology?"

"Very," she said, and meant it. "I cannot say why, precisely, but I feel it to be important. It could be the thing that helps me to discover my purpose, and the secrets of the sheikah may tell me more about" _Hylia_ "myself."

His laughter was low and quiet and pained, and she did not know why but she allowed him this, did not feel offense at this expression of old sorrows through mirth. "I should have known."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing. Just an old man letting his mind wander down too-trodden paths. Forgive me." Using his stick he pulled himself to his feet. "Shrines like this one are scattered all over this land, waiting for some chosen person to awaken them. Even here, on the Great Plateau, there are another three. It's possible they may have more secrets for you to unlock, more knowledge to add to your own. More," he paused, reached out with his hand as if to snatch a word from the air, "perspective." He gestured with his stick, toward the tower. "If you use your Sheikah Slate's viewfinder, you can see all of them from the highest vantage there. Use its functionality to place waypoints, and you can more easily plot out a path to and between each of them."

"You should not know that," she said, and he looked at her with raised eyebrows but she did not shy away. "Unless you are sheikah yourself—and I do not think you are—you should not know many of the things you know. I begin to suspect," and she recalled that sharing this was sharing vulnerability, but in this case it could also be a weapon, used to shift the balance of an adversarial relationship, "that you also know a great many things about me. Could it be that the secrets you keep would be of interest to me, sir?"

There was a gentle warmth to his smile, but the fact that it _was_ a smile incensed her, and that must have shown on her face because his smile took on a wistful edge. "I will make you a deal, Zelda, if you will allow me."

"I will hear your terms."

"You will be going to the other three shrines with or without my urging, so I think you will find them generous enough. Gather the four orbs, and I will name a meeting place. Once we are there, I will tell you everything I know. There will be no more secrets between us."

She _would_ go to the other three shrines regardless, and a few hours ago she would have been wary or even fearful of meeting this man at a place of his choosing, but something inside of her was rapidly changing and she was ready to embrace it. That this man knew things, things about _her_ , was enough to gall her, to push her on, if not for the knowledge then for the simple spite of wresting it from him.

"I agree," she said. "Given that you have what seems to be a preternatural ability to place yourself in my path, I trust you will find me once I have the last orb." He nodded, and she nodded back. "In that case, I suspect we will meet again shortly." She took the slate in her hands, pressed a button, and was gone in a flurry of light.

Alone, the old man sighed and pulled his hood down lower.

* * *

At the camp nearest to the shrine of Oman Au, the bokoblins sat—not peacefully, because they are never genuinely peaceful, but idly. What they said to each other in their tongue, what thoughts passed between them, none could say. They were surrounded by the evidence of the dead, by rusted weapons and ruined armor and the skeletons of buildings that had once belonged to the people that had called the plateau holy.

The iron crate that sailed through the air was utterly noiseless, its arc almost lazy, before it crashed on top of one of the bokoblins, killing it on impact. Its fellows leaped to their feet, panicked, brandishing their weapons at a threat they didn't see.

A metallic boulder smashed a second one into the ground. The third saw a flash of Hylian frame, the barest hint of golden hair, and pointed and cried warning just before the settled boulder rose up again and slammed into it at high speed.

The sentry at the edge of the camp blew on its horn, but there was no one to hear it, and the last thing it saw was a Hylian woman walking with hurried steps, swinging death on a wide, invisible arc.

* * *

For one hundred years had the wounded Guardian stood sentry against nothing, its legs lost to a conflict with men and women that had been dead for so long that their bones were now dust. It slept, as it had slept for the better part of a century, undisturbed both by the dead and by the beasts that shared the blight that drove it.

Finally, after one hundred years, something living, something _worth noticing,_ wandered into its field of awareness. Soil and grasses dislodged from its joints as its long dormant eye was bared, and the area was filled with a low _thrum_ as its diagnostics confirmed that its weapon was ready, though time had degraded its rate of fire considerably. It turned its head, a perfect sentry of the spot in which it had been ruined.

It could not have been said to have _expected_ an intruder, because the Guardian did not really have a mind like a Hylian or a bokoblin. One might say, when forced to anthropomorphize it, that it _knew_ an intruder was present, though not necessarily where—so when it turned its eye and found only a metallic stone floating in midair, it focused on this.

The stone did not register as alive, or as a threat, so the Guardian did not target it. Instead it moved, slowly, in a narrow and flat arc. The Guardian knew that an intruder was present, and if it had a mind it might have guessed that the intruder was on the other side of the ferrous mass, but it did not have a mind and so it only watched.

After a time, the boulder settled against the ground next to the corner of a wall. The intruder was gone. The Guardian went back to sleep.

* * *

The two bokoblins at the foot of the tower, holding their bows, did not even see the bomb drop from the tower's top, nor the arm that had thrown it. They heard the heavy impact of the object striking the earth, and then the much more musical sound of the bomb exploding, sending both monsters flying and leaving their weapons to be picked up by more determined hands.

* * *

The enormous skull that Zelda had seen before did house multiple bokoblins, and keese besides, but the specific thing about it that she did not know was that one of the bokoblins in it was prodigious in its strength, its skin blue and its abilities superior to that of its compatriots.

She might have guessed, if she had known that it was in there, that it was no more observant than any of its fellows, and in this she was right. None of them heard their sentries falling from arrows fired at close range into their heads.

They _did_ hear arrows striking the inside of their base, however, and all of them looked up together to see where they had struck, and how. As they were looking another flew in, passing too high to strike one of the lanterns they had set, missing the rope because of how gently and lazily it was swinging. The keese fluttered about, and as the third arrow struck the wall they began to grab their weapons.

Then there was a sound like a hammer striking metal, and the lamp ceased to sway. Another arrow missed, but the fifth hit the rope from which the lamp was hanging, severing it utterly. Instead of falling the lamp hung there, utterly inert, and they were so transfixed by the fact of it that they did not hear the beating of Hylian boots in retreat.

Another hammer-sound, and the lantern dropped onto the barrels of explosives that were horded in their lair, and every opening in the skull was filled with jets of fire.

* * *

The form of Zelda's progress across the plateau is a familiar one; what she lacked in strength of arm she made up for in being unseen, in her quick and easy mastery of the functions of Sheikah Slate, in a shrewd and analytical intelligence, and in fire.

Unable to catch fish with her hands, she fished with the slate. Unable to scale sheer mountains, she walked along less direct paths. She studied often the topography of the plateau, planned out her routes, ate well of fruit and fish and eggs and vegetables and meat, slept deeply next to fires that she relit easily enough with a bit of flint and a piece of steel. She explored, seeking out every hidden nook and cranny, trying to better understand the secrets of the plateau, was rewarded with treasure she did not really want.

The goddess did not come to her again in that time, not while she dreamed or while she walked along long, quiet, snowy paths up the mountain. The way she saw things, _processed_ things, that never changed, but something else did, albeit slowly. If asked, she would not have been able to say what it was, but perhaps she could say why it was happening: whatever was needed of her was bigger than herself, bigger than the things she _believed_ or even _knew_ about herself, and she knew from the sound of the castle in the north that it was all she could afford to work toward. Her own comfort, her own sense of self, her own _morality_ … these were things she had to set aside.

In the early days of her journey, when all that was required of her was to slyly fight monsters who never saw her coming, when all she had to do was believe that the things she was throwing herself against were not people, when she thought that the face of evil was in piggy creatures that she thought might kill and eat her if they laid hands on her, it was easy to think in this way.

It would not remain so, much to her sorrow.

* * *

The air at the top of Mount Hylia was cold, and the thick doublet and gloves she wore were barely up to the task of fending it off as she emerged from the heart of the shrine.

"Well, at least it is a _crisp_ kind of cold, and not a bitter kind." As she spoke her breath hung in the air before her, and she wondered if perhaps some echo of her words was contained in those particles. "And if my sense of timing is accurate…" She stepped away from the entrance to the shrine, turned, and set her jaw. "Of course it is."

The old man stood on a small crest of snow, facing the rising sun. The light threw his face into stark relief, even beneath his hood, and his expression was a mask of sorrow and old, lingering regrets. She knew that expression, that face. Why did she know that?

"Hyrule is truly beautiful, is it not?" It was framed as a question, but it wasn't, not really.

"I have seen precious little of it," she said. "Saving for the beasts that walk it, I would have to agree. There is something bracing and wild about it."

"Much of the rest of the kingdom is the same. It was not this way, once." He looked at her, though she was sure her expression was neutral. "Oh, it still had its wild places, of course, but not so long ago the monsters that stalk the plateau were rarely seen and easily dispatched. Even here, in this place, there were always people, tending to the holy sites and to each other. Would you believe that all the buildings here were white, and that they shone in the sun like mirrors? That people used to believe that it was a place where the gods would walk?"

It was a beautiful thought, but her imagination was not set to run down these shadowy paths; her concerns were more immediate, more pressing. "It is time for you to tell me who you are."

He sighed, the sound small and quiet and short, and seemed to let go of something inside of himself. She could not have guessed what he had just decided, but he turned to face her. "The four shrines that dot this plateau. Meet me where the lines connecting them would intersect."

"I do not see why we cannot—" but the old man was no longer there, not really, she could see the light of the sun through him, the blinding glow of the snow behind him. "Wait. What are you—"

He was gone, as if he had never been there.

"Was that magic? It wasn't the teleportation of the Sheikah Slate… at least, it didn't look like it. Could it be that that is how teleportation appears to the one who isn't doing it? Or…" She stopped, shook her head. "It doesn't matter. He will tell me with his own mouth."

She pulled out the sheikah slate, keyed in to the travel gate for the Oman Au shrine, and dissolved into light. She did not have to consult her map; she had studied it enough over the past few days to know that she was heading to the ruined temple.

* * *

The path from the shrine to the temple was long, but quiet. She did not run; she walked, taking in the sunshine, savoring the feeling of a long journey coming to an end. She ate a baked apple as she walked, and she guessed she would never get tired of them if she hadn't yet.

This path was empty of beasts, as she had been up it before; a ruined manse (or possibly some form of monastery, it was hard to tell with how little of it was left standing) had held one, but she had managed to lure it away and blow it up to raid the building for supplies. The only thing she'd found of use were a pair of trousers in better repair than the ones she'd been wearing, but she counted herself lucky for them and the comfortable boots that they'd been stored with.

There was another building before the proper temple, on a lower level, which itself looked as if it had been a place of some importance.

"A cathedral, of some sort. I wonder what it was that people did here, once; what words did they say? Have any texts concerning their rites survived?" She did not think so; she had been in the cathedral before, had searched it for anything of note, had found nothing except for the body of an enormous machine, frozen in a pose that almost suggested it had ceased to function in the midst of destroying that very building. She walked on past it. "I cannot concern myself with every minute detail of the past; focus is required if the necessary details are to be learned. The past is _everywhere_ , here, in layers thousands of years deep, and if I am to accomplish what is asked of me then I cannot be so distracted." Regardless of how nice, how _fulfilling_ , that distraction would be. She continued up the path.

The temple was enormous, even in ruin, and something about its disrepair lent it an air of quiet dignity that Zelda suspected it would not have had in the past, like a person who has aged enormously but maintained their posture and grace. She stood outside of it, looking up at it, saying nothing, not feeling _right_ in speaking because she understood on a level that was almost instinctual that this place was holy, had been holy since before her ancestors walked the earth (and she was right, though not in the way she knew). She was not aware of her relationship with the sacred, but the lay of her own thoughts told her that her concerns were aggressively material; still, here, now, in this place, she understood that she was standing in front of something more.

Then she stepped inside, and her breath caught in her throat.

Save for the adjoining chamber to her right, the entire temple was a single open space, an enormous hall of tremendous height and size. Thousands of people could have stood in it, she thought, and she wondered if echoes of their presence still hung here in the air like dust motes. The entire left wall had been torn away, opening the hall to the air outside, its position on a hill making the view one composed solely of blue sky. The wind blew through here gently, tugging at her doublet, her hair, whispering to her that there was more to this place than she had guessed.

At the end of the hall, the far end, stood an enormous statue of a woman in flowing robes. On her back were wings. At her feet was a halo of light.

Zelda crossed the hall with unhurried steps, taking in her surroundings with wide eyes, but over and over her gaze returned to the end of the hall, to the beatific smile and prayer-clasped hands and simple construction of a figure that she knew, _knew_ despite how it was so unlike the goddess, how utterly it failed to capture her in any meaningful way. She did not remember her dreams, the images had escaped her days ago, but she remembered awe in a way that no work of stone could possibly capture. Still, there was something there, a quality of serenity and protection that spoke to _someone's_ understanding, if not Zelda's own. This was Hylia, even if it was not _her_ Hylia.

The statue stood on a higher level of the temple floor, perhaps so that congregants could more easily see it even when the building was full. She ascended the steps, saw that the statue was surrounded by smaller ones, cruder in their shape but bearing the same motif of long flowing (covered?) hair and wings, hands clasped in prayer. To whom does the goddess pray, she wondered.

She stopped before the statue, looking up at its face, nearly touching the pillar of light, which faded and was replaced by a ray of light through the broken ceiling. It was not sunlight; it felt too clean.

"My daughter." The voice did not come from everywhere, as the voices of the four monks had. Hylia's voice was not even a sound but a knowledge of meaning and intent that welled up from inside of her own thoughts, speaking to and from a place so deep inside of her that the idea of that depth within herself nearly made her afraid. "You have passed the trials of the shrines, claimed the treasures of my monks. In exchange for them, I offer you my blessing."

Zelda should not have spoken there, in that place, to that radiant voice from a place so high and removed that it spoke to a plane of being beyond herself, beyond the very world, but she had to. The questions were more powerful than her fear of taboo.

"Goddess Hylia," she said, "I would ask that you bless me with knowledge. I would know what it is you require of me, so that I can perform that duty."

"That knowledge will come to you in its own time," the goddess said, and Zelda closed her eyes and in her mind she saw the goddess as she really was, was back in that vast dark places within herself that let her see Hylia as if she were made of flesh. "Just as your memory will. Do not be afraid of ignorance, or of the struggle to remember and learn; these things will strengthen you, if you are courageous." The warmth of the goddess flowed over her, around her. "You have undertaken the trials of the gods, and the rewards for such trials is _power_ , my daughter."

That gave her pause, a twinge in the back of her thoughts that made her… not afraid, but apprehensive. "I do not wish for power."

"I know." There was an apology behind those words, guilt and sorrow so enormous that she could not comprehend it, was ashamed for having summoned it. "Power is not your strength but your burden, driving you ever closer to a life and a place and a destiny that should not have been yours. It will not make you happy; it will compound your sorrows, and bring you to the foot of the most terrible trials that a person can face." Silence, a moment's respite, those words hanging in the air between them. "And yet you will need power, for without it you will not be able to do your work, and the world will fall. I will not force it upon you, my Zelda, so I ask: will you accept this burden? Will you surpass the limitations set upon you and be given sorrow in return, so that your sorrow might protect the world?"

The presence of the goddess calmed her, made her feel _right_ , but another part of her thoughts knew that if it were not for the calming effect of Hylia's presence then this would have thrown her into a hurricane. She did not know what that power entailed but she knew that if she could remember then she would understand, and that understanding would be couched in a fear and a sorrow so deep that it would break her to know it all at once. What could be so terrible that a celestial guardian would warn one of it? What could be so important that a protector goddess would foist that terror on one she professed to love?

Far away a blue light shone in a castle full of darkness.

"I do accept." She felt the world shift, coming into alignment in a way it had not been before; she knew that she had just changed something, and now that she had there would be no going back.

"Then I offer you another choice; my blessing may be laid on your body, but only in part. Would you have new strength added to your limbs, or would you better stand against the abuses of the dark things that wander the world?"

The response was obvious, instant, and nearly out of her mouth before she clamped down on it. She wanted protection from the creatures that walked the land, but that answer was borne on fear, a reflex of someone who could not meaningfully confront danger. Was she that person? Had she ever been, and if so, was she still? It was not some higher reasoning that ultimately dictated her answer: it was rejection of the possibility of being managed by her fear.

"The first," said she.

"So be it," said the goddess.

The light that fell from the sky shifted, enveloped Zelda so that she could see it through her closed eyelids, could feel the hands of the goddess on her. It was a subtle thing, warm and gentle in a way that she imagined Hylia to be (but that was not all that she was, there was something beneath that, something deeper and older and awesome and terrible, a core of steel that informed the sorrows and the kindnesses and _how did she not know before this moment?_ ).

Then it was gone, and the weakness in her legs was gone. For some people, the difference in her strength would have been significant but not enormous; for others, for her, it was as if she had all the power in the earth poured into her. She felt as if she could run for miles without stopping, or swim a great river, or climb a mountain.

"Go, my daughter," the goddess said. "Go and face the trials of the world, and the ones that have been left by my followers. Return to me and continue to build your strength. Return to the task appointed you and bring peace to Hyrule."

The light went out. The goddess was gone, and Zelda was alone in a hall that seemed much smaller, much darker, than it had before.

She thought she would have a moment's respite, but her sense of timing made her brace a moment before she heard the old man's voice above her.

"I see the goddess's blessing has made you more resilient." She turned, looked up, saw him standing on the edge of a hole in the roof.

Conversing with the goddess had been draining, and she was spiritually weary even if her body felt stronger than it had ever been. She had desperately wanted a moment to herself, and was put out _again_ by the absurdity of the old man on that high roof, and was about to tell him so—but what she saw when she looked at him stopped her short.

"You—"

"Do not dawdle," he said, turning away. "We'll talk up here." He was gone, then, taking the ghostly paleness of the spirit fires with him.

* * *

There was a ladder to the roof just outside of the chamber, next to the enormous break in the wall. She ascended quickly, barely feeling the effort.

The roof was broken, the tile slick, but she climbed onto its peak easily enough. She looked about for the old man, saw him standing in the belfry of the temple's tower. Now she walked carefully, mindful of her step, and climbed the broken stones until she was standing before him.

For what seemed a very long time they regarded each other.

"You seem so sad when you look at me," she said. It was an invitation and an apology both. She did not know why, but she knew she had hurt this dead man, somehow.

"Am I so obvious?" He said, and his smile was sad, too. "I suppose that I cannot help it. Tell me truly, Zelda: in this place, at the top of the Great Plateau, the place most sacred to our people, after speaking with the goddess herself, do you not know me?"

She shook her head. He set his staff aside, squared his shoulders, turned to face her.

"Then I will tell you. I was once King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule." The spirit paused for a moment, considering his words. "I was the _last_ king of Hyrule. I was its king when it ceased to be."

A flash of light; she did not shield her eyes from it, only winced, willing herself to see. When the light faded, the man was left with what must have been his true semblance: his face was unchanged, his beard and hair the same, but on his head was a diadem and in place of his cloak he wore a heavy coat of green and gold. His feet no longer touched the ground, and the spirit fire around him was so numerous that it lit him even under the light of the sun; he no longer hid that he was a ghost.

"Do you still not know me?" She shook her head, and he no longer hid his expression, his face twisting into a mask of pain and longing. "Fate is cruel, to set my daughter before me when I am a stranger to her."

"What?" A thousand questions burst into life in her mind, a field of flowers blooming all at once, each one crying out in its own voice. "What do you mean, you are my _father_?"

"It is as I said." Regretful words, not enough to stifle the growing roar inside of her.

"Why did you not tell me before?" Her hands had clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms until she thought they would draw blood. "I have wandered this plateau for _days_. I have killed creatures that would have killed me, if given the chance. I have hungered, and ached, and bled, and wondered if I was alone in all the world! I don't know what happened to me and _you could have told me from the beginning_ , couldn't you?" She did not wait for his answer, and the pain in his face only incensed her further. "Tell me why."

"Because I was afraid!" There now, pain in his _voice_ , a justification, vulnerability where before he had tried to remove himself from it. "Because… Zelda, you cannot understand, but if you remembered then you would." Though a ghost, though unable to feel fatigue, he rubbed at his face, probably remnants of an old habit from when he had been alive. "At first I thought that you might simply remember me, and greet me as your father, and that we would talk. Then you didn't, and I thought perhaps telling you everything all at once would cause you some harm, worsen the state you were in."

She felt it there, could hear the excuse, the ire built in her until she thought she would explode. "You were—"

"I was afraid for myself," he said, and the anger in her guttered. She could not have said why. "You do not remember how last we parted, Zelda, and I do not have time to tell you all of it. I earned your hatred a hundred times, a thousand times, and ever since you were laid in the Chamber of Resurrection I have had time to reflect on my failures. I failed my kingdom, I failed you as my daughter, I failed," here he stopped, seemed to swallow, "I failed your mother. My legacy is one of failure, and I have nothing to offer you outside of that, so I am afraid. I am afraid of what you might think of me, afraid of how much harm I have already done you, afraid of the further doom I have brought upon our people."

"Enough," she said, and when he looked at her then his eyes were pleading and fearful and she pitied him. "Enough. Whoever we were before, whatever we are _now_ , I cannot say. Whatever wrongs you have committed, you have paid for them and continue to pay. I… I am also sorry. Whatever relationship we had before, you seem to care a very great deal about me." _I feel nothing in return_. Should she be ashamed of that? Was it a reasonable consequence of a lack of memory? "In that case I will ask you to help me. You know a very great deal that I do not; lifetimes worth of knowledge and perspective. Do you know what it is that Goddess Hylia requires of me?"

She could not have guessed at the roiling cauldron of his mind, could not guess if her words had helped him at all, though the pain he felt was still obvious. Instead of answering he pointed to the north, and she turned and looked and saw the castle, the terrible darkness that swirled about it. "You have seen what has taken residence there, the catastrophe that ended our people."

"Ganon," she said, and the name echoed in her mind as loudly as Hylia's.

"Yes. Ganon, the Calamity. Hyrule Castle, the symbol of our land and its people, has contained it… but only barely."

She could feel it now, from that distance, how it strained against the yoke that kept it sealed. "That blue light…"

"Is the only force that has prevented Ganon from breaking its bonds and devastating the world in the same way it devastated our land." The king turned from her, looked out to the castle for himself, and somehow seemed to sink into even deeper sorrow. "If you have forgotten this, even _this_ , then I must tell you from the beginning."

He did. He told her of Ganon; of the prophecy of the princess with the blood of the goddess and the hero who carried the sword to seal the darkness; of the prophecy of a fortune teller who gave them word of where to find ancient weapons of war; of the gathering of Champions from throughout Hyrule; of victory nearly in grasp, and the catastrophe that came after; of an army turned against its people, and a ruin that shattered the land and drained it of both lives and structure.

"You fell in the battle," he said, not turning to look at her in spite of how plainly he wanted to, to assure himself that she was still there. "It should have been the end of it, the end of everything…but the appointed knight went to the castle to face Ganon alone. By a strength I do not understand and using the sword that seals the darkness he did battle with the beast, driving it back into the castle keep. He has been fighting it for a century, without cease, to keep it contained."

The enormity of the idea was absurd, so horrible she did not want to confront it. One person? A hundred years? "How is that possible?"

The king turned to her at last. "I do not know. My awareness does not extend that far; even if it did, I do not think I could understand what is taking place now. But I know this: the hero is faltering. The light that seals the darkness grows dimmer, and soon its power will be utterly depleted. When that happens, nothing will stop the Calamity, and Ganon will devour this land and every land that lies beyond it." He was afraid for her, more than he was afraid _of_ her he feared for her life, for her safety, she could see it in the set of his eyes and the depth of her understanding was painful to her because she could not remember _why_ she understood him so well. "That is the task that Hylia has set before you, my daughter. You must gather your strength, reclaim the power that you once held, and return to Hyrule Castle. You must help Link, the knight. You must save us all."

She nodded; she did not speak. There was nothing to say. The name did not strike her as important now, but she would remember it.

"Until you have reclaimed your strength, it would be foolhardy to try to confront Ganon. He maintains his control over the Divine Beasts and the Guardians that swarm over the Castle; as you are now, you probably could not even approach that place. Head east, to one of the villages in Necluda." He pointed, and she looked, not expecting to see anything new, knowing which way east was. "Follow the road past the twin summits of the Dueling Peaks and head north, to Kakariko Village. There you will find the elder, Impa. She will tell you more about the path before you."

Again she nodded, and he actually smiled.

"In spite of my fears, I find myself… relieved, divested of my burdens. It assures me to see you. Who would have believed that of me, if they had known me before? But looking at you now…I have confidence. And faith." The paraglider was seated in the corner of the belfry, he retrieved it, handed it to her. "Take this, and be on your way. Hylia protect you, Zelda."

She started, realizing he was fading in front of her, nearly dropping the paraglider. "Wait. Wait! I have more questions!"

"I am sorry," he said. "I've told you everything I can."

"That's not true! There's so much I don't know yet!"

"Our story is a long one." He closed his eyes, as if concentrating, holding onto his place in the world. "I cannot tell you all of it; there is no time." In spite of his efforts, he was utterly transparent now, and in a moment more he was not there at all, only the ghost-fires indicating his presence. "When you remember, Zelda, I pray that you will forgive me. I am a failure, but I did love you. I love you still."

The fires winked out, and he was gone.

* * *

Zelda tested the glider from a safe height, jumping from the belfry to the roof, and found it serviceable.

She glided from the Temple of Time to the edge of the plateau.

The sun was high when she sailed east, down to the land of Hyrule.


	4. Kakariko Village

Nanna had been tending the fire near the entrance of Kakariko Village for years, the closest thing to a guard that the community had needed in that time, but for the past week she had been addressing this duty with renewed gusto. Lasli had told her once that it hadn't been necessary to do that, wouldn't it be nicer to help out around Enchanted? But just in the past week, Dorian himself had come to her and suggested it was more important than ever.

"Be careful, Nanna," and it had been a while since a man that young had addressed her so seriously, "rumor has it that the Yiga Clan stirs." She had taken him at his word; Dorian was a very serious man, very family-minded, and he would not speak such frightening words unless he had good reason to believe them. Lasli hadn't liked that, had liked it even less when Nanna told her that she didn't want her staying out at night anymore, but it was a sign of the times.

Nanna had no illusions about her role as sentry; she was not a _guard_ , the way the young men who took shifts at the front of Impa's manor were guards. If some monster decided to barrel its way into the village, she would just have to get out of its way—the last time she'd been a capable fighter she'd been in her sixties. Now she mostly served as a sentry exactly because she seemed so harmless; she was the second-oldest person in the village, and the fact of her age meant people tended to treat gently with her. This was a bother when the younger people proved incapable of holding a decent conversation with her, but when a stranger came by and someone had to get a sense of them before they came into the village? Why, there was no one better.

When Nanna sensed the person coming to the village, she set herself upon the ground near the fire. She was in a position of repose that might also be read as one of discomfort—the first for one of those traveling merchants who came by (like that poor Bugut) and the second for anyone she did not know.

When the woman rounded the corner, golden hair hanging down past her waist, straight posture almost at odds with the threadbare doublet she was wearing, Nanna opted for the injured presentation. She grabbed at one of her ankles, winced, sucked in hard through her teeth; the whole bit was easy for her because the ankle was perpetually sore after she had fallen and twisted it some ten years back and if she put a little pressure on it at just the right angle she could trick the tissue there into throbbing as if it were wounded again. Not pleasant, but it helped to sell the charade.

The girl saw her and immediately quickened her pace, breaking into a trot, practically running before coming to a stop in front of her. "Excuse me, are you all right?"

"Oh yes, just a twisted ankle, dear." At a glance she took in the woman's dress and possessions: a warm shirt and gloves, good if aged trousers, solid boots worn by hard walking, a thin layer of grime that suggested a long time traveling without a real chance to stop and properly wash. The woman was _bristling_ with weapons, an enormous axe slung to her back with an iron-bound wooden bow and a quiver full of arrows, a heavy wooden shield and a shield that looked like a relic from the Age of Burning Fields, an old soldier's spear, and at her hip a sword of similar make. Whoever this woman was she was prepared for a fight; if not for the genuine concern she was showing Nanna would have assumed she was a threat and made a run for it to raise the alarm. People traveled with weapons, it was just the way of things, but the girl was a walking arsenal. And on her hip, a strange rectangular object—

Nanna was not like most Sheikah; in her youth she had studied under Impa's elder sister, Purah, and learned a very great deal about the Sheikah Slate. Some part of Purah's perspective on it had been communicated to her: it was a path laid by their ancestors, an illustration of what they had originally been capable of, a tool that could be used to affect change in the entire world. Purah had been so impassioned about it, not so much the object itself but the _idea_ of it, what it represented for the sheikah as a people and for Hyrule.

Nanna had not thought about those conversations in years. Eventually she and Purah's other student, Robbie, had ended up leaving the laboratory; Robbie went to Akkala, while Nanna returned home. How many years had she spent thinking on those conversations before she had forgotten them, how important they had once been? Had there been a time when she had decided not to care? She could not recall.

She could recall that it was not just the slate that Purah had spoken of; in the old days, the days where knowledge had been the only food for a hunger that had gnawed at all three of them, Purah and Robbie had also spoken together of the princess, who was responsible for field research with the slate. They had spoken of her so often, so vividly, that an image of her had been painted in Nanna's mind: sad but determined, perpetually lonely, given over to burdens that no one pair of shoulders should have to carry. They had always been so sad when talking about the princess, and so _proud_ to have served someone who valued knowledge as deeply as they did.

So yes, Nanna knew, when she looked at Zelda, who she was. It was not the slate that let her know: it was the simple fact that this was the face she had constructed for herself, and this was the woman who could carry that burden. That there was only one known Sheikah Slate, and that that one had been left with the sleeping princess in the Chamber of Resurrection, only occurred to her a moment later.

She pushed herself up to her feet, and the girl's ( _princess's, you old fool, the princess's_ ) shock was written plain on her face. She folded her hands behind her back, placing a small pressure on her lower spine so she could stand straighter, and no longer tried to hide what vigor nature had left her with.

"That is the Sheikah Slate you're carrying," Nanna said, and the princess's fingers brushed against it, a protective reflex that she probably wasn't even aware of. "Would you mind telling an old woman where you got it?"

Then the princess regarded _her_ , shock falling away and replaced by an analytical scrutiny that Nanna had only seen in very few people. She knew what this place was, it's why she had trekked through the mountains to get here, but she was guarding herself, guarding her secrets, not fully ready to trust the people in front of her. She wanted to speak to someone, but Nanna wasn't it. Well enough.

Expecting silence, Nanna was taken aback when she spoke. "I awoke in the Chamber of Resurrection two weeks ago, without my memories, and the slate was waiting for me in the same chamber." Now the girl was no longer analyzing her; her eyes were a challenge, an insistence regarding her own righteousness. "I have used the slate to try to uncover the mysteries of the past, and it has helped me enormously in moving from the Chamber to here." The force of her personality was almost physical, pushing against anyone who looked at her, communicating depths of meaning that she couldn't have been aware of.

"I see, dear, I see." She smiled warmly. "Well, now, may I make a request of you?" She did not wait for the princess's nod; she hadn't waited on anyone in a very long time. "You _must_ go speak to the village elder, Impa, as soon as you can. She lives at the far end of the village."

The princess looked past her, then at her again. She was not analyzing Nanna, but she was still focused, her attention turned inward in the way of thinkers unmindful of the world around them. "I believe I will do that. Please excuse me."

The princess walked past her, and Nanna watched her go. Her posture communicated so much work, so much toil, so much _strength_ that one would not have attributed to the crown princess of Hyrule, who still looked like she should have been in school.

When the princess crossed the small bridge and went down the stone-lined path into the village proper, Nanna fell to her knees and made the full obeisance.

"Welcome back, Princess Zelda," she said. Then she made the obeisance again, got to her feet, hopped over the small fence onto the field of vegetables below, and ran straight to the village ( _what a sight I must be_ ). She would tell her granddaughter first; Lasli would make sure everyone else knew.

* * *

The village was a lot to take in all at once, its architecture and its mode of dress and the sheer number of people there. Before now she had only run into a few travelers on the road and the people attending the stable she had passed by at the foot of the Dueling Peaks, but she had the impression already that Kakariko Village was singular both culturally and geographically. Everything here was built into the mountainous surroundings, with no moving of land having been done.

"This place is very… _defensible._ Surrounded by mountains that would be almost impossible to scale, with only one winding road leading up to the village itself. Interesting. I suppose, if the sheikah were responsible for many wonders in the past and essential to the survival of the kingdom, that they would want to settle in a place where they could ensure their survival. It's awfully remote, but if they had technology like the Sheikah Slate…"

Trials and shrines dotted the road behind her, including _three_ on the mountain pass, and she was slowly building a network of travel gates that would allow her to return to almost anywhere she had already passed by more quickly than walking across this village. An entire civilization with that kind of ability was almost impossible for her to imagine; the way people would relate to the very idea of distance, of _place_ , would be so radically removed from her understanding that they might as well have come from another universe altogether.

These are the things that occupied her as she walked across Kakariko Village; these are the things that she was thinking, so lost in her thoughts that she did not notice figures flitting back and forth between houses as she walked past them, voices speaking to each other at conversational levels, fingers pointed at her, an entire community slowly waking up as if for the first time in a century. The theoretical arrested her while the concrete began to rise behind her, around her.

It was easy to spot the elder's house; it was less house than manor, placed centrally in the layout of the village and seated on a naturally occurring platform of stone. A gated wooden staircase lead up to it, and at the foot of that staircase two guards stood. She set her shoulders as she walked toward them; it would take some effort, but she would talk her way past them, no matter what it took to do so.

They saw her coming, turned to look at her; that seemed good. She wouldn't need to get her attention. Then they flinched as if struck; that did not seem as good.

"Excuse me," she said, "I'm here to speak to the village elder, Impa. Is she available?"

The two guards, both men in their forties, looked at each other with confused expressions. They looked at her again, down to her hip— _oh, of course_ —and then to each other. They started to speak together, at a level so low she couldn't hear it, but their expressions were caught somewhere between disbelief and sheer panic. She brushed the slate with her fingertips, and they flinched _again_.

Finally, the burlier of the two turned to her and said, "Excuse me, but is that… is that an _actual_ Sheikah Slate you're carrying?"

"Of course it is, you near-sighted fool!" The voice of the old woman she had met at the gate. Zelda looked over her shoulder—then yelped, jumping nearly out of her skin.

The _entire village_ had gathered, or so it felt. Dozens of men and women and children were standing in a crowd behind her, each of them craning to try to look at her. How had she not _heard_ them? How had they managed to group together so _fast_? Also, _why were they all staring at her_?

"The both of you know who that is," the old woman said, gesturing at Zelda with the barest inclination of her head. "And the both of you know full well that the elder will want to speak to her immediately. Now get out of her way."

The thinner of the two men grunted. "Nanna, with all due respect we do _not_ know who she is; we know that the Yiga have begun to move, and that they may attempt some new subterfuge to undermine this community and the kingdom. There are… _indications_ about who this woman is, but if we know them then the Yiga could know them as easily." The other man, the burlier one, reacted oddly to this, though Zelda would have had trouble putting her finger on exactly how. "At the very least, we need to interview her before—"

"Enough." A voice from the top of the staircase, like fingers brushing against old parchment. Zelda turned, the two guards turned, the entire village came into very sharp focus around the old woman who stood at the top of the stairs.

She was _ancient_ , so shrunken with age she was no taller than a child, and her wide-brimmed hat was hung with charms that signified her great esteem in the village. Despite her age her vision seemed clear, because she looked at Zelda directly and her gaze never wavered. "Dorian. Cado. Your fastidiousness is appreciated… and unnecessary." She never moved from where she was standing, never took her hands from behind her back, never so much as shifted her eyes or changed her expression, but the two men bowed deeply to her in a posture that suggested both fealty and regret. "This woman is who she appears to be; I know her better than I know my own face."

She held out one hand, and a woman about Zelda's age appeared from her side and helped her lower herself to her knees. The elder placed her palms flat on the flooring in front of her, and some part of Zelda began to scream in protest as she made the full obeisance.

"Princess Zelda." The young woman also made her obeisance; the guards followed. Zelda turned, feeling the pressure of them all around her, and saw that now the entire village was doing it, foreheads pressed to the ground, and she did not know why but this terrified her on a level so deeply rooted that she felt like she was falling, that there _was_ no ground beneath her and surely she would fall into nothing, fall forever. What did they know of her, what did they _think_ of her, to burden her with this?

"We have been waiting for you for a very long time."

* * *

"You do not remember me," Impa said, settling onto the cushions that marked her normal seat in the manor's main room. She waved her attendant away, and the young woman went to ensure that the door was properly closed and that they were alone. "I had thought the confusion on your face born of an expectation that _I_ might not remember, but…?"

"No," she said, genuinely rueful. If this woman really did remember her as she had been a hundred years ago, then they must have been very close. It was preposterous to feel guilty for having amnesia, but she _did_ feel guilty, and knew that she had failed this good and faithful heart in some essential way. "I'm sorry, but… I don't remember anything before waking up in the Chamber of Resurrection. Not myself, or where I came from, or… or anything. I've been guided by the ghosts of a past that I cannot recall."

"Hm." Impa smoothed out the folds of her robes, settled her hands on her knees, and seemed to relax. "It's not your fault. You and Purah both theorized that it might be an effect of the Chamber of Resurrection; one cannot be wrested from the grasp of death without something being lost in exchange." She looked haunted, almost, for a moment. "We were both there when you were taken to the Chamber. Purah had absolute faith, she was so _sure_ in your return, that I had been holding onto her surety as an anchor for myself. I spent many years being afraid, bolstered up only by faith." She refocused, looked at Zelda, and broke out in a smile so wide and so genuine that Zelda felt tears stinging at her eyes. "But you're here now. Look at you! Like not a day has passed, and nothing ever happened to you."

Zelda smiled in return, hoping it was more open and reassuring than she felt. "I am… grateful to you, Impa, even if I do not remember your kindness or your… your loyalty." That word felt odd in her mouth; she had known intellectually that she was royalty since before she had left the Great Plateau, but something about the reality of it did not sit well with her. "Would you please tell me what _did_ happen to me? My father only said—"

"Your _father_?" Now Impa leaned forward in truth, eyes wide and searching, and even the young attendant seated by the door behind Zelda gasped aloud. "You've spoken to him? Does the king of Hyrule yet live?"

She shook her head. Foolish of her, to speak without thinking, without the proper contextual couching to make that information sensical. "No. I'm sorry, he died when Ganon brought down the kingdom." Impa's expression did not change; she had been afraid that this would wound the old woman ( _my old friend_ , she chided herself) but she was too attentive, too intent in her listening to be disappointed to learn that there would not be more miraculous returns. "I have spoken with him, however. Perhaps I should start at the beginning?"

Impa nodded, and so she did. She spoke of awakening, of a voice couched in a golden light; of the Plateau, and the rising of the towers, and the swarming of beasts and the secrets held inside of the shrines; of the long walk here; of her father, long dead, and the ancient voice that echoed mightily from the castle in the heart of Hyrule. She told her of remembering nothing, of speaking with a dead king.

"The last thing he told me," and it had not been the last but no one needed to know that, did not need to hear of how a dead man's grief fell on someone who could not understand, "was that I was to come to Kakariko Village, to _you_ , and that you would be able to guide me in my journey."

"Tsk. Seems like he didn't change _that_ much."

" _Grandmother!_ " The young woman seated behind Zelda spoke not in reproach but in horror.

Impa waved her hand. "He would have agreed with me, were he here. His Majesty, may his kingdom rise anew under the light of the goddess, was not given to trying to grasp new ideas or trying to reach beyond his very specific means." She sighed, turning her attention back to Zelda. "He was a king, so his means were far-reaching indeed, but he married into the royal family when he wed your mother. He never really understood her relationship with the divine… or yours, to all of our sorrow."

Zelda turned this idea over in her head. The king she had spoken to had seemed so regal, so severe, so sure of his words and his place in the world, that to hear someone as plainly faithful as Impa was speak ill of him, even in this roundabout way, was shocking. She really hadn't understood his weaknesses over the course of that conversation; she wondered if his regrets might make more sense to her in time.

"Was he right?" That was what really mattered. "Can you help me?"

"I will try," Impa said. "I have had a very long time to think about what went wrong, all those years ago, and how we might address those wrongs now. The world shifts and shakes every year, Princess, and those tiny vibrations have become great earthquakes and landslides leading up to your awakening. If the goddess told you that we are running out of time, it must be so; but she is the font of all wisdom, all knowing, and so if she set this task before you it must be that it can be accomplished." She bowed low at the waist, having to use her arms as a brace to lower her torso. "May I look at your sheikah slate, please?"

"Yes, of course." She could not have said why, but she was _comfortable_ with Impa, in a way she had not been comfortable with her father or with any other person she had met up to this point. If they were truly friends in the past, and it seemed that they had been, then she was in a better position than anyone to be able to tell her the things she did not know. She rose from her place on the floor, unhooked the sheikah slate from her waist, held it out to Impa. "But, please… I don't know what kind of ceremony we stood on before, but I would be very happy if you would not address me so formally. In private, at least." There was decorum to consider, if that display outside had been any indication.

Impa pushed herself back up into her sitting position, reaching out and gingerly taking the slate with hands that did not shake at all. "As you wish, Zelda."

"And that goes for you, too," she said, turning back to the other woman in the room, who looked up at her from her seated position with a rising flush. "If you are Impa's family, then I would hope that we could be friends, Miss…?"

"What! But you're the p-p—" she stopped, trying to control her stuttering and failing spectacularly. "I can't address you so in-in-informally, Your Grace!"

"Paya." Impa's voice cut through the room, and both Zelda and Paya looked over at her. She was flipping slowly through the screens of the sheikah slate, trying to remember how to use a tool she had not laid hands on in a century. "Her name is Paya. She's very shy." She looked up without tilting her head, locking hard onto her granddaughter with what Zelda imagined was a very carefully practiced expression of expectation and reproach. "And if you request it of her, of course she will call you however you like. In private."

The color in Paya's face, if anything, was even higher now. Still, she nodded, and when she did Zelda smiled and kneeled in front of Paya and extended her hand. "Well then, Paya, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Zelda."

Unlike her grandmother, Paya's hand shook like a leaf in the high wind as she reached out and clasped Zelda's. Still, her grip was strong ( _she could probably crush my hand in hers_ , Zelda thought) and firm. "Hello, Zelda. I'm P-P-Pa…" She sighed through her teeth, closed her eyes as if to hide behind her eyelids. " _Grandmother why are you doing this to me!_ " This last was a whisper, but so stricken with shame and embarrassment that, given volume, it would have been a wail.

"I'm not doing anything, Paya," Impa said. Zelda let go of Paya's hand and the girl gratefully collapsed into herself, bowing very formally—mostly for the sake of hiding her face, Zelda guessed. "Zelda, you mentioned that the shrines on the plateau restored previously locked functionality to the slate."

"Yes." She returned to her seated position, looking at Impa very carefully, studying the older woman even as the latter was studying the slate. "The other shrines that I've been to have been trials alone, and offer no insight into how else it might function."

Impa nodded. "It can do so much more than back when you and Purah were trying to decipher the workings of it, but… I cannot find where it stores its images."

"Images?" That word, by itself, did not call anything to mind for her. It was confusing in its meaninglessness. "I'm unsure what you mean…?"

"When you traveled Hyrule, before the Calamity, the Sheikah Slate could be used to capture true-to-life images of whatever you pointed it at. Like a painting, only in detail as fine as the eye itself could capture." She held the slate out, and Zelda leaned forward to take it from her. "You took many such pictures, using them to commemorate places you thought especially noteworthy. I had hoped to find them there, but they seem to be missing."

"That… _would_ be a very interesting function for it to have, and useful, too." She winced, very slightly, not wanting to continue.

"But you think that beside the point of this conversation," Impa said. Zelda nodded. "Well, I cannot blame you. It may be. But if your memory is lost, and with it your connection to your divine power…" A thought occurred to her, and she grimaced. "I have not told you of your divine power, and you've not asked. Did your father mention it?"

"No," she said, and as ridiculous as it was she felt sheepish that she didn't know something that Impa had expected her to. "I suppose we… didn't have much time."

Impa nodded. "I see. In that case, listen for a moment, and I will tell you another story."

And so she did; hers was the story of a battle ten thousand years old, and older, and the combined might of a nation rallied behind a princess and a warrior and four mighty champions. It was the story of the sheikah, of a people who propped up a country and who stepped out of the light; it was the story of an evil so ancient that there was no perspective by which it might be understood. Who could guess at the mind of real horror? They were only mortal. They could only fight it. They could only call upon the powers of a god, wielded by mortal hands. Zelda began to understand why she failed.

When she finished her story Impa stopped, closing her eyes and folding her hands again, concentrating. This pose she maintained for long minutes, so long that Zelda thought she might have fallen asleep—but then her eyes flew open, and she stared at Zelda with such force that it was like being struck across the face. Zelda empathized with Paya, sat straighter without realizing she was doing it.

"If the Goddess Hylia, protector of Hyrule and all its peoples, has sent you to me, then I must do my best to be of help to you. We lost the war with the Calamity, Ganon, a hundred years ago because we were not prepared and because we allowed it to turn our own weapons against us. Though it remains trapped in Hyrule Castle, locked in combat with the hero, still it maintains its hold over those weapons, and by consequence over our very lives.

"There are three tasks before you, Zelda, and if you wish to save Hyrule, to save the _world_ , then you must undertake to complete each of them in turn. I do not know how you will do it; I barely know if it can be done. When Hylia warned you that you would be heaping sorrows upon yourself, know that she surely meant it, and in her mercy wished to prepare you. More, you will be seeking to bring an end to a war that we have been losing for one hundred years, facing challenges that no other single person could stand against." Impa looked down at her from her elevated position, and in that moment she was not an attendant of the royal family, not a guardian; she was a judicator, taking measure of the person in front of her, seeking understanding and answers and promises and Zelda suddenly felt as if she were very small. "You will enter into a peril like you have never known in all your years, even greater than that to which you fell. You may lose your life. Are you prepared to take that risk?" In another place, to another person, Impa might have said that there was no shame in fear; she offered no such succor here.

What could Zelda say? She nodded, her throat locked tight.

"Good. That is well. In that case, your tasks are these." She held up one finger. "You must regain your memory, and thereby your sacred power." She held up a second finger. "You must free the Divine Beasts from Ganon's control, so that we might turn them against it." She held up a third. "You must return to Hyrule Castle, where the beast waits, and render assistance to the warrior with the sword that seals the darkness. Together you must defeat it; save the hero, and you will save us all."

Oh, no great things, these, when lined up so prettily. The weight of them was so enormous it was absurd, laid at her feet as if the words were supposed to be meaningful in the context of her own understanding. How easily Impa said it from where she sat, not required to—

 _No_. Zelda closed her eyes, turned her attention inward. _No, it is not her fault that this is on your shoulders. If anything, it's probably your own, and you knew it from the moment Hylia called out to you. There was some terrible failure in the past… and now I must fix it. I_ will _fix it. He is waiting for me; I don't know why that matters but it does, I can feel that truth reverberating in my very marrow._

 _Will I dream of Hylia, tonight_?

She opened her eyes and looked back to Impa, and her face must have showed the determination she felt because the elder's mouth turned up into a wide grin.

"I see. If you are so determined, and fear is pushed from your thoughts, then I know where you should begin. The first concern should be your memory, and I feel that your best hope for regaining it lies in the mementos you embedded in the sheikah slate. In Hateno Village in the east of Necluda you will find a research lab; go to that lab and you will find my sister, Purah. She is the only person who knows more about the Sheikah Slate than you did, and if anyone can repair it then it's her."

"Hateno… I passed by the road there on my way here." And there was another sheikah tower near to it; she had marked it on the slate.

"Good. Then you will not need further directions." She stopped for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "When will you be leaving?"

"Soon," Zelda said. "First thing in the morning, I should think. It would be sooner, but I have been walking for a very long time and would be very grateful to sleep under a roof tonight."

Impa nodded. "The inn will gladly house you for the evening, and you will be afforded every luxury with no charge." She must have seen Zelda about to protest, because she shook her head. "I know you would prefer to have your anonymity. I would prefer it too. But that busybody Nanna informed the entire village, and though word will not spread beyond here it's too late to ask everyone to pretend they do not know who you are. If I were you, I would take advantage of it."

That was disappointing; this special treatment, this insistence on how special she was due to the circumstances of her birth, was galling to her. Well enough if she saved everyone's lives, she would gladly accept free housing after that, but she hadn't _done_ anything yet. Still, Impa was right; if it was too late to do anything about the situation, better to make use of it…and admit when she didn't know how. "How would you go about doing that, in my shoes?"

"Paya," Impa said, and Zelda could feel the girl snap to attention behind her. "You have listened to Zelda's story. What in the village do you think would be of best use to her?"

There was no pause before Paya answered. "If the pr-the prin-," she swallowed audibly, "if _Zelda_ wishes to continue to address dangers as she's been doing, using stealth to her advantage, then the stealth suit she can procure at Enchanted would be invaluable." Zelda turned to Paya, whose color rose again just from being looked at. "It's very… very stealthy! Oh, Claree can tell you more about it!" Paya visibly tried to gain control of herself, seemed to succeed. "While we're there, we should probably get you a fresh tunic, and a good hood for traveling. There's no way to really make you less conspicuous, but we can still make sure that you're comfortable and protected."

"Good. When traveling, very little matters more than the quality of your gear." Paya did not beam at her grandmother's approval, not exactly, but she seemed less likely to sink through the floor. "Zelda, go with Paya to the Enchanted, and you will be fitted for your new clothes. Paya, after Claree has given her what she needs, take her to the inn, return here, and be ready to pack. You'll be leaving with her in the morning."

"Grandmother?!"

Oh, that was just what she needed. "Impa, I hardly think that necessary."

" _This is not a discussion!_ " Her authority was so practiced, so absolute, that both younger women were struck silent by it. "Zelda, you have mentioned that you have slain monsters, by cleverness and by the use of tools. There is no doubt that you are capable. But the Yiga clan is on the move." Her expression took on a darker cast, as if the very mention of the word "Yiga" put a foul taste in her mouth. "You can kill a bokoblin easily enough, but are you confident that you could draw your sword against a person? Could you end a man's life, or a woman's, to save your own?"

She did not have an answer, save for the sudden knot in her stomach, and the surety that she would fail, utterly, in that moment, and with that failure she would die, and then so would everything that mattered. She pressed her lips together, fought down her embarrassment, shook her head.

"Do not be ashamed. It is no terrible thing to shrink from the possibility of spilling a person's blood, even if they mean you evil." The old woman looked to her granddaughter. "Paya may be shy, and she may come across like a silly girl, but she is sheikah. I have trained her with my own hands since she was a child. There is no one in the village to whom I would sooner entrust your well-being. Paya, I know you are afraid. All of us are afraid, in these times. It is our fear, and how we address it, that will define us. I asked Zelda before if she would accept the burden of destiny, and so I will ask you the same: will you travel with this woman and protect her, even at peril of your own life? Will you give yourself utterly, wholly, to the cause of the gods?"

It occurred to Zelda that Paya did not share her apparent need to conceal her emotions; she was not openly weeping _as such_ , but her face was twisted up with the effort of it and streams of tears were flowing down her face. Were those fear? Shame? Pride? Duty? All of those? She couldn't say; Paya did not reveal any of it. She just bowed to her grandmother, very low, and said with a voice so shaky she could barely be understood, "Yes, Elder. On my blood and my blade. My life belongs only to Hyrule."

* * *

Zelda and Paya began walking at the very break of day, when the black of night had given way to a greying sort of proto-dawn. The village did not come out to see them off, for which Zelda was grateful, but she could still feel all of their eyes on the two of them as they passed through the village gates.

A night's rest in a good bed had proven the medicine that Zelda had thought it would: she hadn't felt this rested, this ready to face another long day of walking, since her journey began. A good breakfast at the inn, served as early as she pleased, was the extra touch that the whole experience needed.

What she hadn't expected was how much she would appreciate her new clothes. She hadn't gotten sunburned during her travels _yet_ , but the new hood was both light enough to be comfortable with the sun high and covered enough that she could stop worrying about her skin. The tunic, perhaps, was a bit much, she did appreciate all of its pockets. She had already begun storing scraps of paper in them, each used to jot down ideas, and had begun to categorize the pockets according to the notes that they were supposed to hold.

Paya seemed just as well-rested, which was fair; she had the impression that the sheikah woman was accustomed to getting much less sleep than she had been allowed the night before. She did wonder what Paya did in the evenings; she hadn't been given a clear image as to her duties. Just as well.

"When we return," and Zelda was quite sure that they would return, "I will see if the sheikah slate can transport both of us. If we're lucky, then the trip back should take us only a few seconds." The shrine overlooking the village had contained a guardian, rather unlike those that had dotted the plateau or that one could spy swarming over the ruins of the castle town. The intent had probably been for her to fight it with sword and shield; she had shot it in the eye with her bow and thrown bombs at it until it was dead. It had taken the better part of an hour, but the monk did not gainsay her victory.

"I hope it is that simple, Your Grace," Paya said, then blanched when Zelda looked at her. "I-I mean Zelda! Z-Ze-Zelda. Oh, I know I can't call you by Your Grace when we're around people, it's _dangerous_ , I just have trouble with…" She sagged. "With words."

Zelda reached to Paya, gently clasping her arm in a gesture she thought would be companionable but made the girl jump nearly out of her skin. She let go immediately. "Sorry." She cleared her throat, set her shoulders back, announcing that they would both dismiss the past few seconds. "It's a lovely day for walking, isn't it?"

Paya looked up. "It is."

And it was; the sun had risen behind the mountains so that the sky was brighter than the ground, and in the distance one could see the interplay between light and dark as the light threw the mountain's shadows across the country. The long, winding road out of Kakariko Village was blissfully cool, and would remain so until nearly midday. Zelda thought that if they made time then they should be able to reach the stable at the foot of the Dueling Peaks in time to have a decent lunch.

"I am beginning to see Impa's wisdom regarding our journey."

She had floated the idea of simply teleporting herself and Paya back to the stable, since there was a shrine so close to it, but Impa had been against the idea. Well enough to teleport into the wilds, had been her reasoning, but the stables were high-traffic areas and there was always the chance of them being seen.

"I haven't been outside of the village in so long," Paya said, and she sounded almost wistful. "Not since I was a child. The idea of traveling instantly from place to place sounds incredible, but… I'm very glad that I'm able to be here, walking, and seeing the world again. At least to start! I don't mean to put pressure on you, of course, you don't have to listen to me. I just like this! I like—walking. Walking with you!"

"I rather like it too." This was true; as enamored as she was with the powers of the Sheikah Slate and the secrets of the old world, she also loved being able to move through the world at her own pace. "I will tell you something, though it may sound a bit… childish." Paya shook her head in protest of the idea that she would assume childishness of her princess _alarmingly_ quickly, but Zelda decided it best to continue rather than to try to assure her. "When I descended from the plateau, it was like the whole world had spread out before me for the first time. I thought that was what being on the plateau was, but that was wrong; the world was so much bigger, so much _wider_ than I had assumed of it, and I didn't understand until I started walking. I knew that I had to travel to Kakariko, I knew how _urgent_ it was, but… I took my time. I felt like I had to, even with the world hanging in the balance. I would spy an inviting hill, and ascend to the top of it, and there I would find a stone, and…" She realized her color was rising, but if she started being embarrassed in front of _Paya_ of all people then they were both doomed regardless of whether she managed to vanquish Ganon or not. "And I would look under it, expecting to find a secret there. As if the world had currents of magic running through it, just beneath the notice of people, and by looking closer I might see them for myself. Nothing would be there, of course, but I did it all the same. And then I would spy another hill, and I would go looking for it again, trying to find the magic in the world." She grinned at Paya, trying not to seem sheepish. "I warned you it was childish."

Instead she was taken aback: Paya's face as she listened was so intent, so grave, ran so counter to the softness of her features and the delicacy of her expressed personality that Zelda had to clamp down hard on herself to keep from laughing. _If I laugh now I'll never get her to talk to me again_. She must have been able to control it, because after a space of perhaps ten breaths Paya finally looked at her and said, "I understand."

"You do?"

"Absolutely." For a moment it seemed she would continue, relating some similarity between them or telling a story from her childhood (because it was childish, and Zelda knew), but then her face shifted into a wholly different and neutral expression. Zelda was struck by suddenness and intensity of Paya's gaze down the path. "Your Grace. Zelda."

"Yes?"

"There is a woman walking toward us, on the opposite side of the road."

Zelda looked, and saw only the road that wound into the distance. "I don't see anyone."

"She's walking slowly now, beneath the shade of a tree, near where that path breaks off from the main road."

There was a break in the wall there, a heaping of stone and as she looked Zelda was taken aback; she _could_ see the woman now, could see her looking at them. Paya's eyes were incredibly sharp, or else she was trained in ways that Zelda did not understand. Still, the woman did not look like anyone to worry about.

"She seems to just be another traveler," Zelda said. "I've passed by quite a few."

"She is not a traveler," Paya said. Now Zelda looked at her, but Paya did not meet her eyes. They kept walking, had never stopped walking, but something in Paya's stance had changed. "She is not any of the merchants or tourists or artists who like to visit Kakariko. Her behavior is wrong, too; notice how she had stopped walking, is waiting for us?"

That was true; it was so early in the day that it seemed unlikely the traveler would need rest, even if she had started out from the stable ( _but if she had, how did she get here so fast?_ ).

"I would hear your suspicions, if you would share them." The word _Yiga_ hung in the air between them.

"Not now," Paya said. "Keep walking."

So they did; Paya finally stopped staring daggers and Zelda pulled her hood down slightly further, as if against the light of dawn. Her hair was tied at the back of her head in a very tight bun, which was all that she could manage on her own but would serve to disguise her from any prying eyes at a distance. They walked on, ignoring the woman, who turned to watch them go with a wide, cold smile. Zelda thought, briefly, that it was nothing; perhaps she should even wave to this person, simply for the fact of getting past her sense of nerves. Hylia had told her that fear was something she would have to wrestle with.

And then the woman called out, "Excuse me there! Travelers!"

"Keep walking," Paya said, and Zelda obeyed but out of reflex she turned her head and saw the woman and the woman saw that she saw.

"I'm completely lost, and was hoping you might give me some directions!" Directions she could have gotten at the stable. "You see, I'm looking for someone! And maybe they know that I'm looking, now!" Paya drew in her breath through her teeth next to Zelda, and the pair stopped. "I'd hoped to meet you alone, princess, so that the little surprise I have for you could be shared privately! I never imagined you'd have one of _them_ traveling with you."

"Surprise?" Zelda said. It was a reflexive thing, a response to absurdity, but it made the woman's smile grow wider and toothier.

"Yes. A surprise. Still, I suppose it's fine if you _see it COMING_ "

Things happened very fast. Paya was to Zelda's side; the sheikah was further from the strange woman than her charge was. When the woman drew off her coat, her entire appearance changed, as if she had been disguised by magic.

A flash of movement. Red, and white, and an eye turned upside down. The woman crossed the road in the span of heartbeats, Zelda couldn't even process how fast she was, saw only a flash of steel, and had a moment of perfect clarity as the assassin raised her long, sickle-shaped blade for a killing stroke. _I have experienced this before_.

A flash of white and grey, and Paya was in front of her.

* * *

She moved automatically, just as Grandmother had drilled into her hundreds of time, hearing the words as they had been said to her. _Like water, flowing easily from moment to moment_.

She came in low in front of the assassin, arms pulled in tightly against her diaphragm. The blade came down, swinging for Zelda instead of Paya, and Paya brought her left hand up, palm open, to catch the wrist that held it. She didn't stop it—she redirected it, using the force of the downward stroke to twist the arm, then brought around her right palm against the extended joint of the Yiga's elbow.

It broke, the sound like a twig being snapped underwater. The other woman breathed in sharply, not crying out. She was well-trained in handling her pain. Paya shoved at the arm, and the hand did not let go of its sickle but that didn't matter.

 _Be like water._

The assassin swung her left fist, aiming for Paya's jaw, and Paya turned her head into the blow so that it skidded against her hair, robbing it of its essential force. She drove her left fist hard into her opponent's diaphragm, used the rotation of her torso to swing again at the now-exposed ribs with her right.

 _Yiga assassins gird their major arteries, but to preserve their freedom of movement their torsos are unarmored below the armpit._

She used her legs, the explosive power rising from her hips to drive her fists. Using each rebound to fuel the next punch, she struck the assassin five more times, totaling three blows to each side of the ribs. Two ribs broke. The other woman's breathing, behind the mask, was still; she was holding her breath against the pain. Now she was reacting, her legs bunching beneath her, and Paya's coiled in answer.

 _They retreat like birds, and are confident in that retreat_.

The assassin launched herself backward and Paya launched herself forward. Distantly the part of her that was not fighting hoped she did not kick any dirt into Zelda's face.

 _They wear masks to hide their faces, and fear those who look upon them with the eyes of truth. Do not look away from them, and they will know you for what you are_.

The assassin was suspended in the air during her leap, utterly helpless for that fraction of a second, unable to swing her weapon with her useless arm. She was staring at Paya's face, Paya could feel her attentions from beyond that childish flipping of the sign of the goddess's benevolence. How long it must have felt to her, to see Paya's hand reaching out for her, the fingers brushing against her mask.

 _They are dangerous in service of their master, but in their hearts they are cowards who could not stand in the light. They are sharp blades made with bad steel:_

She grabbed the assassin by the mask just as her leap was ending, hooked one leg behind both of the Yiga's, rotated her torso, and slammed the other woman's head into the ground with all the force in her body. The shock of it traveled up her arm, and the mask cracked open like the shell of an egg tapped firmly on a countertop. The sickle blade went spinning uselessly into the air. The break in the mask exposed the other woman's eye and she met it, then, held it long enough to see the assassin's terror.

 _Easily broken_.

She leaped backward, landed lightly on her feet between the attacker and the princess. She drew her sword just as the Yiga's hit the ground.

The entire exchange had taken perhaps seven seconds.

* * *

Just like that, it was over. Zelda did not think she had had time to _breathe_.

"Get up," Paya said. She was bouncing on her feet as if ready to continue the fight, her body full to bursting with nervous energy that Zelda suspected would find its outlet one way or another.

"This isn't the end of anything," the assassin said from the ground. "Master Kohga knows of the princess's return. The entire clan has mobilized; I was just lucky enough to be first." She laughed, and coughed with sudden pain; Zelda realized that somewhere in there Paya must have struck her in the ribs, or, or something.

" _Get up_."

Slowly, painfully slowly, the Yiga did. Her mask fell away complete, showing the enormous bruise that was already changing the color of her face. Her right arm hung limp and useless, and she cradled her shoulder with her left hand. She was still grinning, but there was fear there too, and Zelda could see it as plainly as if the word were written on her face. That was the look of someone who had talked often of death, who thought they were prepared to face it, but had never really known the reality of it.

Zelda looked to Paya, then. She didn't speak out, _couldn't_ , not when the other woman had literally just saved her life, but she was also filled with a terrible certainty.

"It would be unseemly, the greatest offense to her Grace, to spill your blighted blood in front of her," Paya said, slowly, as if meting out words for someone who could barely hear them. "Tell your master that the princess is invincible, that her lowliest servant beat you within an inch of your life." She lifted her sword, the tip pointed directly at the assassin's throat, and though they were separated by ten paces Zelda knew that it would take no effort on Paya's part to open the other woman up like a fish. "Go, and do not return."

The assassin did not react, at first; it was not until her eyes came back into focus and she looked at Paya's sword that she seemed to hear everything that had been said to her. "Foolishness," she said. "This will not end until the blood of the goddess soaks into the ground." With her good arm she drew an object from a pouch at her waist, threw it down, and was gone in a cloud of smoke.

Long, long minutes did the princess and her retainer wait in the silence. The sun crept perceptibly, peeking over the tips of the mountains, and only when the light hit her face did Paya put away her sword.

What could one say to such a thing? Thanks seemed utterly unsatisfactory for what had just transpired. Zelda had never seen anyone move like that, like _either_ of them, and she genuinely did not know what would have happened if Paya had not been there. What did one _say_ to that?

In the end, she had a question. "When did you break her arm?"

Paya turned to her with the expression of a child caught daydreaming. "Oh. When she, uh." The color drained completely from her face. "When I knocked her weapon away from. Away from you. With my fist, I went for the. The joint." That paleness shifted over to green. "Princess will you please excuse me for a moment" and without waiting for an answer she turned and walked to the side of a road, and Zelda moved to follow her.

Zelda did not have the eyes or the training necessary to see what had happened in the exchange between the two, but she was not blind and she saw other things. She understood enough, hearing of this Master Kohga, to know that their journey—and what would qualify as safety for the two of them—was now very different.

She also knew that, if it hadn't been for the assassin revealing that their whereabouts were already known, that the entire clan was already on the move, that Paya would have killed her there in the dust.

She mulled on this silently, holding Paya's hair for her as she vomited on the side of the road.


	5. Hateno Fortress

The rhythm of properly shod hooves ringing gently on the road was a nostalgic sound, and Zelda could not have guessed at where that feeling of nostalgia came from; that was a curious sensation, and she knew what it _was_ , but she hadn't felt it since waking up in the chamber.

"Paya?"

"Y-yes, Prin—yes, Zelda?"

"When you feel nostalgic about something, do you usually relate it to specific memories from your childhood? I have that feeling now, but I can't relate it to any specific moment in my past. At any other moment I would argue that nostalgia and memory are too closely related to be separated, but this suggests otherwise, I think."

"I'm… I'm afraid I don't understand."

Zelda barely heard her; it hadn't been an actual answer to her question, and though it would have embarrassed her to realize it she had filtered Paya's puzzlement out entirely. "It suggests the question of how much I _do_ remember; I remember how to talk, to walk, to eat. I am not reduced to the state of a newborn. But I remember nothing _of_ myself, of any moment in the past. Can one know things that are not recalled? Is there a difference, then, between knowledge and memory? And if the two are separated, on which side of the divide would nostalgia fall?"

Paya nearly shrieked in sudden alarm, but the look Zelda threw over her shoulder was anything except for alarmed. Irritated, perhaps, in a quiet place that she would not let Paya see because it would hurt the other woman very badly. She applied the gentlest pressure to the reins of her horse, and the mare slowed down enough to draw alongside Paya's. Paya's horse was cream and blue like milky clouds against the sky, and covered in spots; Zelda's own had a roan coat, nearly solid. Both were of an even temperament, so gentle that a child could ride them…if they had confidence about it.

"Soothe the horse when it starts," Zelda said to her, and Paya nodded for something like the third time. "If you're nervous, it will be nervous, too. You need to reassure it; it will convince the horse of how you _want_ to feel, and it will help to convince you too."

Paya leaned forward—too far forward, she barely knew how to balance herself in the saddle—but when she stroked the horse's neck her hand was firm, the motion even and gentle. "I'm sorry," she said, and it was impossible to tell if she was talking to Zelda or the horse. "Grandmother taught me all sorts of things, but I never learned how to ride. This is all new to me, and I'm not a very good learner."

"I'm sure she understands," Zelda said, and did not take her eyes off of Paya until the other woman was seated properly again.

Catching, taming, and registering the horses had taken the best part of a day, though she was sure it would end up paying dividends. Paya had been too afraid of going near them, afraid of being kicked, (and in fairness one of them had nearly taken Zelda's head off when she had spooked it by moving too suddenly) so Zelda had attended to the matter herself. She was still wearing the sheikah-made stealth suit, which was both as useful as advertised and surprisingly breathable. She had pulled the mask down to rest under her chin because it made it slightly hard to breathe and the condensation of her breathing made the effect worse, but she appreciated the armor's craftsmanship. When they ended up stopping for the night, she would change again and really examine the armor, try to understand the mechanics of it. However it did what it did was _worth_ understanding; she never would have been able to catch the horses without it.

The road curved gently around an enormous rock face, itself very nearly a mountain, and she found that her anticipation at what might be around the corner built as they rode. The horses went at a slow walk, she didn't want to put them to the test until they had all had time to grow more comfortable with each other, but the possibility of what lay just out of sight was so wild, so enticing, that it took an effort not to urge the mare into a full gallop. She could feel the potential of its speed as it shifted under her; before long, she would give it all the lead it needed. Patience for now, and patience for a while yet. The distance fell away, length by length. She pulled the mask back up, found that the condensation of her breath had been wicked to the outside, grinned, hoped that the mask would be enough to hide her excitement from Paya.

After an interminable length of time they rode past the stone, and Zelda looked outward and to the south and her breath caught in her throat and she eased her horse to a stop.

"The Blatchery Plain," Paya said, stopping a little more abruptly beside her. "The site of the Champions' last stand."

Zelda said nothing in reply, at first. The entire field was littered with Guardians in various states of disrepair or destruction, most dead and inert and missing their legs. In the far distance, much further south than they intended to ride, a single stalker walked on long, reaching legs, casting its glowing blue eye all about it, searching for some hapless prey. It stood in contrast to the field of ruin, never coming too near to it, as if the presence of its fellows and their annihilation had been enough to warn it off.

"There must be thousands," she said at last.

"Grandmother would know the exact number," Paya said. A moment later she added, "Or Nanna. I don't know exactly what happened—I like heroic stories, but this one…" She let that trail off, abandoned it. "Regardless, I think it best if we stick to the road. That battle ended a century ago, but a handful of the Guardians persist and will attack anything that wanders too near. There's a bokoblin camp near the western edge, if you look, and you can tell where the functioning Guardians are by the… extent of their…" She looked at Zelda. "…Patrols. Zelda?"

Zelda looked out at the Guardians, lightly touched at the edge of her armor, and thought, and thought. "I was just thinking about this armor, about how it works. It deadens footfalls, doesn't rustle in spite of being made of cloth; even the sound of my breathing is softened. Someone could tell me how it works; if nothing else, we could go back to Kakariko Village and Claree would be able to tell me about the methods of its construction. This armor is a mystery to me, and I wish to know the answer to it, but that answer is less urgent because I know where I can get it. Do you see?"

Paya shook her head; Zelda suspected that the other woman _did_ see, even if she did not wish to.

"I wonder by what mechanics the Guardians function." That was not the whole truth; she hungered for it, yearned for it more than thirst made her yearn for water. "By what means do they project beams of light that can burn and burst? How are they still functional after a century of being exposed to the elements? If they are from the same era as the sheikah slate, then would understanding them also mean I would better understand _it_?" This last was folly and vanity, and she knew that; they were headed to a laboratory run by a woman who had been poring over this very question for more than a hundred years. The font of knowledge available to her would not be as comprehensive as that for the armor she wore, but in many ways it could be more _profound_. Why place so much emphasis, so much _importance_ , on her own experience?

"Princess," Paya said, in a voice that was both shaky in sudden terror and trying so hard to project authority that Zelda turned to look at her with raised eyebrows, "we _cannot_ try to dismantle one of the functioning Guardians." At the look on Zelda's face (which was more surprise or curiosity than anger, Zelda was sure) she nearly quailed, but still she managed to hold eye contact. "We _can't_. It's v-very dangerous. There are bokoblins wandering nearby, too many for us to kill them without being seen."

Now Zelda set her jaw, and it had nearly the effect she wanted on the other woman. "I have spent the past several days sneaking around or eliminating beasts like these or much worse, Paya. Even if we were detected, and to be clear we would _not_ be, I am confident we could outfight them." That was foolhardy, dangerous, _stupid_ , but she also thought it was true. Even ignoring Paya's own absurd strengths, Zelda knew that she was not physically the same person who woke up with their memories missing. She was not an expert with the sword, but she knew enough about the bokoblins and how they thought and fed and fought that she knew that, if it came down to it, she could fight one. _Hopefully more. There_ are _a lot of them._ "You said yourself that they do not go too near the active Guardians; staying outside of their patrol range should be simple."

Paya looked ready to argue the point about being able to fight one of the beasts, reconsidered, let it go in the span of seconds. "E-ev-even so! Dismantling a Guardian is… it's not _impossible_ , but it requires tools we don't have! You can test it on one of the dead ones, if you want; their armor is so thick that you can't damage it with normal steel, and their vitals are so well-protected that you would need to strike perfectly into their eyes to create openings." She shook her head. "They're fas-fascinating, yes. But part of that is because they're from an age that produced weapons like them! You would need some sort of equivalent to fight them, otherwise they… they."

Zelda held out a long, rectangular object that was proportioned like the handle of Paya's own eight-fold blade, only its construction was identical to the guardians, all stone set against darker stone. She shifted her fingers over the grip, and a thin segment of it separated from it, flipped upward. This part hummed into life, and a blade of bright blue light materialized. The glow it gave off was pleasant to look at, but one could almost feel the danger of it as Zelda turned it in her hand.

"Where?" Paya's question was less curiosity than disbelief.

"The shrine above the village. The monks have many gifts, for those who can complete their trials."

Paya groaned, burying her face in her hands.

* * *

The Guardian flared to life as Paya stepped within its range. The deep _thrum_ of its sensors coming online was a note that reverberated in her head, in her very bones. She drew her eightfold blade, positioned her shield on her off-hand, waited for it to look at her.

"Princess!" The sound made the Guardian swing its head over to her, away from Zelda who was somewhere in the forest of dead Guardians on its opposite side. "The beams of light are not actually beams in the same way that sunbeams are! They're _pulses_ that leave trails of light behind them, like comets!" She didn't think that would _actually_ be important, but it was something to say. Maybe the princess would think it mattered, though. It was hard to predict what connections Zelda could make.

The red light focused on her, and she closed her eyes. She recited the lesson that Nanna had taught her, because she had always wanted to know how people could possibly fight things that could kill with a glance. "Don't mind the light. Listen to it. The charge builds, and builds, and when it's ready there will be a chime." Her leg shook beneath her, and for one moment she was greeted with the question of what would happen if she suddenly had a cramp now. Would she be completely vaporized? Oh, that wasn't pleasant, she shouldn't have thought about that, now she was going to be sick.

The chime was a deep sound, too, followed by an inhalation of breath, both by her and by the Guardian. The world lit up through the lids of her eyes.

The light had aimed at her chest; she slid under it like a water sprite, already charging, her body nearly parallel to the beam as the pulse struck an object behind her and detonated with the force of twenty of Zelda's bombs. The wind pushed at her back as she ran, her grip on the blade shifting, her eyes wide and unblinking. She made eye contact with the Guardian as the red light focused on her again, it began to chirp as it acquired its target.

She leaped into the air, and the red light tracked her as she sailed toward it.

The Guardian was too slow; Paya slammed into its head, driving the tip of her sword against its eye. The tip shivered, nearly broke, then skidded off the glowing red glass. She hissed through her teeth; she had expected to do _some_ damage, rather than none. The thing groaned beneath her, something inside of it grinding together as its eye lost focus and its head began to turn, tracking as if it had lost its target.

"Zelda, now!" But Zelda was already moving.

Zelda did not run like a sheikah did. She had never been taught to run properly, probably didn't realize there _was_ a proper way to run, but when she moved now it was like she was _flying_ , taking strides longer than Paya would have thought possible, arms pumping and body leaned forward. In this way she was unrefined, but the intensity of her body language, the look in her eyes as she focused solely on a spot on the back of the Guardian's head, sent a shiver running up Paya's spine.

The machine recovered and Paya struck its eye again, less firmly so that her blade did not skip but still hard enough to disorient it.

Zelda scrambled up its back, the guardian blade flaring to life in her hand. She swung artlessly but firmly, from her shoulder, her motion almost like a butcher cutting through bone as she hacked at the back of the Guardian's head. Paya could not see what effect she was having but she _heard_ it, a sound like breaking porcelain as blue sparks sprayed out against Zelda's face. The princess never flinched, never looked away. The sword was pulled back and then brought down, back and down, back and down.

They had agreed that Paya would make sure the eye was disabled, but that she would not place her body in front of it in case something went wrong. This had been Zelda's idea, though Paya had agreed to it readily, _eagerly_ , and it saved her life as the Guardian's weapon fired, bright blue death lancing out across the field without warning, without charging.

"AGH!" She scrambled away from it, made ready to swing at the eye with her sword, but when Zelda struck at the Guardian again the weapon fired once more, the head still trying to rotate, and this time the eruption of power was much closer, the wind from the explosion blowing Paya's hair as if she were in a storm. "Zelda! I think it's firing every time you strike it!" _I think you should stop!_ could go unsaid, surely.

Only it couldn't, and Zelda began hacking with renewed fervor, an even greater insistence. "Get away from it, Paya!"

" _What_?!" The sound of the weapon discharging over and over, not able to keep up with the rapidity of the princess's blows, was high and shrill and not unlike a monster's scream.

"I said _get away!_ " Zelda looked at her, then, and the intensity in her eyes, the command in her voice, was unlike anyone Paya had ever seen. Her grandmother would have quailed at that look. "If I'm causing this to happen then I must be near to the vital components. I need be only a little deeper, but it's too dangerous to have both of us up here!" She was so sure that for a moment Paya believed her, nearly moved to obey.

"Then let me do it!" Paya covered her ears, stepped around the shuddering weapon's head, made as if to grab for the weapon—only she didn't dare. If Zelda fought her for it, and she _would_ , then the Guardian might have time to turn toward them. There was no telling if it would be able to fire at them without needing to charge, and if it did then they were both as good as dead.

Zelda flipped the blade in her hand so that it projected out from the bottom of her fist, then jammed the tip directly into the opening she had managed to cut. The Guardian stopped firing but began to emit a high-pitched grinding _squeal_ , as if something inside of it were jammed, and Zelda let go of the blade, turned to Paya.

"Please!" She was not pleading, but she was asking as insistently as she could, reaching out and taking both of Paya's hands in hers. Despite herself, in spite of how ridiculous it was, Paya felt the color rise in her face at having the Princess ask _her_ to do anything. "Paya, will you trust me to face the Calamity?"

"Y-y-y-yes, Zelda." Of course she would. Of course that was the only thing she was thinking about while this death machine was writhing under their feet.

"Then trust me in this. Retreat, just a little way. If you think that I am in danger, pull me away from it. But otherwise, leave me to this work. I am _so close_ , and would know these secrets. Please. _Please_."

Something happened, then, as Zelda pled with Paya, as the sun was going down and the blue light beneath and around them was growing brighter, as the sheikah woman quaked in front of her liege. She did not know what it was, but Paya knew it was important, that something inside of her shifted.

"Yes, Your Grace," she said, and when Zelda released her hands she bowed low and leaped away from the Guardian.

Zelda gave no time to hesitation; she turned back to the Guardian, drew the guardian sword out, and continued to chop at the enormous gash she had created. The machine began to fire again and Paya watched as Zelda cut away at the anterior of the gash, widening it more and more, and she could not see clearly but from where she stood the Guardian seemed to be filled with blue light and the heaving of some strange, alien life.

Then Zelda struck again and the armor broke under the stress in a much larger section and the chop went deeper than she had anticipated. The blue of the blade cut into the brighter blue of the Guardian's insides and something very audibly _broke_ , a crack and a whir and a burst of blue flame that spewed out of the wound and licked at the air in front of Zelda's face. The princess did not even flinch.

"Oh, curse you!" the princess said, and the Guardian began to billow smoke from its joints.

"Zelda!" Light shone from out of the guardian as its armor began to crack, rays of blue light as bright as the sun, and Paya's legs coiled under her as she judged the distance for reaching Zelda in a single leap. Would she be able to kick off far enough to be safe while carrying the weight of another person? It didn't matter. She had to try.

Then Zelda turned and leaped off herself, directly toward Paya, and the suddenness of her movement caught her attendant so badly off guard that Paya could not react to it. The Guardian seemed to be composed _wholly_ of light for one brief, brilliant second, lighting up the world as if it were noontime.

Zelda tackled Paya to the ground just as the Guardian exploded, sending a geyser of fire and earth and stone into the air. _I should really be protecting her,_ Paya thought, almost delirious, as Zelda shifted her shoulder to shield Paya's face from falling debris and Paya held her shield behind Zelda's head. Zelda's grip on her was firm, almost immovable, and she reacted not at all to the rain of pebbles and soil that fell around them and onto Zelda's back. The blessings of Hylia had strengthened her more than anyone in the village had thought possible.

Seconds later there was silence, and stillness, and Zelda lifted her head to look around. "Well. It's gone; no more danger, at least." Then she looked down, and their closeness, noses nearly touching, made the heat rise in Paya's face again. "Are you hurt?"

"No, Your Grace," she said. "Zelda. Sorry." She was mostly surprised she had managed to get the words out at all.

"No," Zelda said, slowly getting up. "I'm sorry. I dug too deeply, too greedily, and… it was so _close_ , though. I could see inside of it, for just a moment, and it was as if it was calling out to me, ready to divest itself of knowledge we haven't had for so long, and…" She closed her eyes, shook her head, and her dejected posture became resolute. "It doesn't matter. I made a mistake. It won't happen again." She turned to Paya, offered her hand. "I promise."

"I understand," Paya said, because she did. Maybe she should have been angry; maybe in other circumstances, with other people, she _could_ have been. But watching Zelda charge the Guardian, the surety of her body language, the openness of her expression (even wearing that mask, her eyes could tell so much), and the… the unnamable quality that was communicated just by her presence. Paya had heard what it meant to be a person of destiny before, not a person chosen by fate but a person who rises to greatness as it is required of them. She had heard all of that, but before today she had never really _known_.

She took Zelda's hand, and in the touch of their fingers realized what had changed in herself.

 _Oh_.

* * *

They took the time to gather up large pieces left behind by the explosion; when they finally returned to their horses Zelda had two sacks full of screws, springs, and various other parts that could not be as easily identified. These she tied to either side of her saddle, trying to distribute the weight evenly, before mounting again.

Both were tired and rode in silence for the rest of the way. The sun was setting, and it would be dark soon, but both of them agreed they could not sleep in the field. The bokoblin encampment and its sentries not being alerted to their presence was a matter of luck, despite Zelda's earlier argument, and they could not rely on that luck holding through the entire night.

The walls of Fort Hateno rose in the distance, and Zelda was taken aback once more by the sight of it: Guardians, some of them nearly whole, lay in frozen ruin all over it, apparently destroyed in the midst of assault. Breaking just one of them had left her arm numb with the effort, and that with a weapon apparently designed to fight them. What force of people could have pushed back so mightily against them? What _army_ was so powerful?

There was a clear space in front of the fort where the grass was dead. It was easy to see from far away, but the rolling land surrounding it made it hard to get any kind of perspective. Zelda hadn't had the energy to wonder at it when seeing it from a distance; as they drew closer, she could feel alertness creeping back into her, replenishing the vitality that the fight with the Guardian had drained. _What is this_?

Zelda, a length ahead of Paya, slowed to a stop in the center of the clearing. Paya pulled up next to her, waiting patiently as her charge took in the sight.

The clearing was wide, and dead, and almost perfectly circular, its edges so clean-cut that it was if a curse with a very specific diameter had been placed on the spot where Zelda's horse now stood. No Guardians, broken or functional, stood within the circle; one was seated on the edge, but an entire side of it was cut away, revealing the hollow shell where its innards had once resided.

It was hard to tell from elsewhere on the plains, but here Zelda saw that there were great holes in the landscape, circular openings in the mountains like spyholes; one from the southwest, one from the northwest, one from directly north, and… unless she was badly mistaken, there was a missing sliver on a hill to the west. Thousands or millions of tons of stone had been displaced or vaporized, and trying to imagine the power capable of such a thing made her head hurt.

 _Something happened here. I do not know what, but I know that it made this place, this_ spot _, into a nexus of destruction._

She found herself wishing more and more desperately to remember. They rode on.

* * *

The stars were coming out when they passed through the ruined gate of the fortress wall, and Zelda looked up at the broken crenellations there, craning her neck to see where the reaching arms of a dying Guardian had sunk claws into the stone. Many, _many_ of them had met their end there, at the wall. Not one had made it over.

A tree stood near the gate, tall and with a wide-reaching canopy, good for shelter in weather of all kinds. At the foot of the tree, a little way from the trunk, a man sat tending to a fire on which he had set a cooking pot. Paya nearly seized up at the sight of him (this did not mean he was a Yiga; it just meant he was a man) but when he saw them his eyes lit up and he had an eager, open honesty to his expression that made Zelda instantly like him. There was something about him that spoke to her; she could feel his need to share in some secret knowledge, and that spoke to her own desires quite nicely.

"Heya!" The two slowed to a stop, and he raised his hand in greeting. "Name's Garill. You two here to see Fort Hateno, too?"

 _Ah. So that is the place's name. Was it manned by the people of Hateno Village, a hundred years ago? Are all of them descended from heroes?_ "My name is Zelda, and my companion is Paya." Paya nodded, and it was a motion so nervous it bordered on curt. "As to your question, yes," she said, the lie coming so easily because now it was true, "though I'm afraid I know precious little about it. There are so many machines out there, broken, and not even one on this side of the wall… it seems as if a great army must have fought them back."

Garill's eyes lit up in a way that Zelda suspected would look quite similar to her own face, his grin wide and encompassing and just the slightest bit arrogant. "Well, there's a very good story there, if you'd care to hear it. Would the two of you like to share the fire?"

Zelda looked to Paya, who had blanched utterly, her expression drained of all color. She was too mortified to say that they shouldn't but several degrees too terrified to say that they should, which meant it was solely up to Zelda, who turned back to Garill with her own smile. "We would hate to impose."

"Not at all! It's good to have company, and nowadays it's usually safer to have more folks around the fire. Monsters don't tend to come too near to the gate, but you never know; I'd be glad to host you."

Zelda dismounted, then helped Paya do the same. "We have some food that we could prepare while you tell us the story, if you'd permit us use of your cookpot."

"Please, be my guest. I've already eaten, so you don't need to worry about me."

They threw onto the fire cubed venison, chopped Hyrulian herb, and great chunks of rock salt. The smell was instantly and ferociously appetizing, and Zelda realized she had skipped that lunch she'd been anticipating. No matter. Paya took on the duty of agitating the food with a wooden spoon, so Zelda turned to Garill, who had leaned back to recline against the tree.

"You mentioned a history."

Garill looked off into the middle distance with unfocused eyes and the sort of relaxed posture that suggested someone who relished sharing the knowledge he had accumulated. "Have you heard the story of the hero and the princess who fought here?"

"I haven't," Zelda said, though Paya stiffened in a way that told her that Paya _did_ know the story, and for some reason was worried about her hearing it. "Would you tell me?"

He nodded, looking directly at Zelda, his eyes going between her and Paya as he talked (Paya looking down, pointedly, every time he looked her way). "So one hundred years ago, we had these special warriors called Champions. This hero was supposedly one of them, and the princess was their leader. When the Calamity struck and brought ruin to Hyrule, the hero and the princess made their last stand here, at Fort Hateno. Most of the Hyrulian military had been pushed back into Akkala, leaving Hateno without its regular defenders, so when the hero and the princess fought here it was by themselves."

"Two people?" The force of the question cut through Garill's relaxed recitation, the weight of Zelda's disbelief so sudden and stark it nearly spooked the horses. "All of that out there—all that destruction, all those broken machines—that was the work of two people?" _I did that?_

She had thought Garill might be shocked at her outburst, but instead he seemed pleased at her disbelief, at the enormity of the story he was telling. "We can't know if that's true or not. There are enough broken weapons out there to suggest that some of the army _was_ here, and fell in the battle. But the story goes that the hero and the princess stood alone, even if it was only at the end. The hero was supposed to be the mightiest of the Champions, with a magical sword that cut through darkness, and the princess…" Here he stopped, thinking to himself. "I've never really understood her story well enough to relate it."

"They s-s-say," Paya said, her voice so quiet that it was almost impossible to hear her but surprisingly firm considering it was the first time she'd spoken since the Guardian exploded, "that the princess fought with the power of the g-g-goddess herself. That she leveled a heavenly blessing against the Calamity."

Garill nodded, though something about Paya plainly made him wary. Was she that strange? "That makes as much sense as anything I've heard; none of the accounts seem to agree with each other. What they do agree on is how the battle ended: it seemed like the princess and the hero would turn the tide of the battle, maybe the whole war, when the Calamity itself descended on them." He pointed toward the gate. "You saw that big circle of dead grass on your way here? They say that's where the Calamity attacked the hero and the princess."

Zelda looked that way, as if she could see through the wall of the fort out to the sky-lit clearing beyond it. The holes in the mountains surrounding it, the persistent death of that spot, the perfectly destroyed Guardian at its edge…

Perhaps, another part of her mind reasoned, she should be reeling at this information. She was now passing through a place where she had failed, in some way. This was a place of almost unbelievable importance, of _weight_ , weight so terrible it hung in the air like smoke, and she did wonder at it, but more than that she was _curious_. Greater than her fear, greater than the possibility of shame she wanted to _know_ , to _remember_ , to be able to recall the images of what had transpired in that blasted plain. Had the Calamity caused the destruction there?

Or had she?

"What happened then?"

Here Garill shrugged, and it was apologetic. "No one really knows." Paya made a soft sound; the sheikah knew, apparently, even if they were not sharing. Garill did not catch this, continued on. "The princess is supposed to have fallen in battle against the Calamity, and the hero fought on alone, forcing it all the way back to Hyrule Castle. They say he still fights there, and on some nights you can hear him using his magic sword to keep the darkness at bay." He shivered visibly.

"And the princess," Paya said, still quiet, just loud enough to be heard.

"The princess is supposed to have died," Garill said. He leaned his head all the way back, looked up at the boughs of the trees, and now he seemed distant, too. "Some say that she isn't dead, though; that she was taken away to a secret place and made to sleep until her wounds are healed and she can return to save the kingdom. If that's true, she'd still be alive, wouldn't she?" He believed this, utterly; his voice told the entire story, how he had no reason to believe but his faith drove him forward anyway. "I hope I'm still around when she wakes up. I'd love to see her, one day."

"Thank you for the story," Zelda said, and nothing else. She had nothing else in her.

They drizzled goat butter onto the meat, to aid in browning it at the end, to deepen the flavor and add a bit of much-needed oil and fat to the lean venison. It was ready a few minutes after, and they had enough for three very generous portions. The three of them ate together in companionable silence, though Paya set very close to Zelda and markedly far away from Garill.

When they were finished and all their cookware and utensils packed away, Paya said, "Y-y-you two can s-s-sleep. I'll take f-f-first watch." Garill accepted this happily, bid them goodnight and lay next to the fire, his back to them, but Zelda looked at Paya with raised eyebrows. Seeing the question there, Paya leaned in close, said softly in Zelda's ear, "I only need four hours. It's early; you'll have enough time to rest before I wake you up."

Zelda looked at Garill sleeping, realized what this was about, thought about the story he had told and the way he had told it. Their cheeks brushed together as she spoke into Paya's ear, "I trust him."

When she leaned back Paya was blushing furiously, her face so red that Zelda thought she might be in danger of passing out. Instead she only nodded and said, "I know." _And it doesn't matter_.

So Zelda bid her goodnight and lay next to the fire, and Paya took her seat. The princess tried to sleep, heard her attendant scratching notes into a book. _Probably notes on the day and on the journey. She'll need to make reports to Impa on our return._

Sleep did not come to her, not at first, though the fire was warm and she felt absurdly, ludicrously safe. What was it about being amongst history that made her feel bodily secure? Did she think that the ghosts of the past would stand watch over her with the same devotion and constancy as Paya? Did she imagine the echoes of the hero wandering this place, keeping evil at bay?

Did she imagine her own? Did she imagine herself, wielding the power that failed?

Garill had said he wanted to meet her, had spoken of her with surety and faith and patience. There was something there, a quality of _trust_ , that spoke to something deep in her chest, pouring water onto an old, dry hurt so that it could open and be raw and new again. Why did she feel that way? Why was it that the thought of this man's faith was leaden in her chest?

 _What if I fail again?_

Far, far in the distance, beyond the wall, beyond the plain, beyond the interposing hills and mountains, a blue light leaked into the sky. She could not hear it with her ears, but an ancient voice's song reverberated on a level that was deeper than flesh, deeper than the dreams where she spoke to Hylia. She could feel the weight from there, this duty, this _fear_. Garill was waiting for her; how many others had been? How many had died waiting for a princess who might never come back to them?

 _I will ask Paya to teach me to use a sword._

She slept, and it was exhausted and deep and dreamless under a clear sky. The moon hung in the air, a great eye watching them, clear and yellow-white and unclouded.

A roar built within the earth.


	6. Fate and Memory

It was early morning two days later when Zelda and Paya walked up the long hill at the rear of Hateno Village, a winding road that took them past farms, windmills, and foot-worn paths that cut down toward the shore. Monsters had reportedly been bothering the local populace at night, using those same paths; she resolved to address this before she left Hateno. To her shame she would forget, but in time she _would_ return.

The day before had been full and violent and ugly and triumphant; in their wake they had left emptied bokoblin encampments, a Hinox slain, a traveler rescued as he was being accosted by beasts, and a very great deal of landscape fastidiously explored. They had found only one shrine on the long ride, but climbing the Hateno Tower (and how good it had felt to be able to keep pace with Paya as they had scaled it together, to realize that she could have pushed harder if she had wanted to) had given Zelda ample opportunity to take in the surrounding landscape and plan out several more excursions. Time was running out, time had been running out for a century, but this she believed: there would be only one opportunity to face Ganon, and so she had best go into it utterly prepared.

Hateno Village had been a town much more in keeping with what she had expected, architecturally and culturally, from the impression of Hyrule given by the travelers they met upon the road and the stables at which they had registered their horses. They had ridden into town late in the day, but at Zelda's insistence had taken the time to refresh their food supplies—Paya did love to cook with rice, and Zelda with cream, neither of which they could find easily in the wild—and converse with the locals. They had heard of the sheikah who ran the laboratory at the top of the hill, wondered at the hushed tones in which people spoke of them, and even heard rumors from the local children that a very young sheikah girl had been spotted there, mysteriously. That had given Paya some pause, as there were only supposed to be two people at the laboratory and Purah was seventy years past child-bearing, but they both packed up their curiosity and waited.

They had paid extra at the inn so that their horses would be sheltered there until they returned for them, slept heavily, and risen early. Instead of waiting for breakfast to be served they had set out before sunrise, packs light and weapons heavy.

The walk up to the laboratory was long and winding but delightfully scenic, taking them past copses of trees and small fields that Zelda took absolutely no time to admire or appreciate. Ever since talking to Garill she had felt more driven, more urgent in every step, and it took a conscious effort in every moment to not break into a run, to resist her own building panic. Paya had noticed this, she knew, had seen her stress rising with every hour, so she would eventually need to talk to her about it. No good for either of them, or anyone, if she dissolved into a bundle of nerves because the weight of reality was more than she could bear.

The Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, as the signs placed as distance markers called it, was situated at the top of a rocky outcropping, the only path up to it being a narrow, curved path that snaked up and away from the lab before turning back toward it, and on both sides of the path was what Zelda would call a very steep drop.

"It's interesting," she said, and it was the first word that either of them had spoken since leaving the inn. "The placement of the laboratory, and the enormous spyglass," and she used 'enormous' as literally as possible, since it took up a significant part of the building's profile, "seem to be in service of observation and research. Still, walking up to it now, seeing how easily one might lose one's footing and how small a party one must be part of to approach it, I cannot help thinking of it as also being highly defensible. Does that speak to some change in my perspective, do you think?"

"I don't think I could guess as to your perspective, Your Grace," and Paya did not catch herself this time but Zelda winced at her slip, "but you're correct. The laboratory was built in the Age of Burning Fields, when monsters were even wilder and more numerous than they are now. Auntie Purah had it constructed here and in such a way that an invading force could be easily repelled by only a few well-armed defenders." She bit her lip, thinking hard, and Zelda saw in her face some cousin of the same anxiety she felt. "Still. Now it's only Auntie Purah and her assistant, and Auntie Purah is even older than grandmother. Monster attacks in this region are almost unheard of, but I'll be glad to see her again." Zelda nodded, and the rest of the way they walked in silence.

The laboratory was a wooden structure, at least in part. A white tower rose from the rear of it, its construction almost like a lighthouse, the spyglass situated on the main build's tiled pointed toward the center of Hyrule and must have been twenty meters long, and situated to the left of the entrance was what seemed to be an ancient sheikah furnace. There was no unified sense of construction, here, as if the lab had been added to over the course of decades, never more than once by the same architect. In many ways it gave the impression of unbridled chaos, but at the same time Zelda could feel the inner workings of the disorder, the arrangement of a mind given to taking a very particular approach to learning. It was strangely intimate, this impression of the building, and that intimacy made her feel very much at home.

"'If the flame is blue, the forge is hot,'" Paya said, reading from a sign that sat in front of the lab. "'Don't touch.'"

"The fire appears to have gone out," Zelda said, and Paya nodded. That it was out disappointed Zelda; she had seen enough blue flames in her explorations of the shrines of the monks, true, but the shrines felt like separate worlds cordoned off from the outside, like dreams that one walked through while waking. Seeing that same blue fire out here, in this place, on the edge of a sleepy village like Hateno, would lend a sense of concrete reality to everything she had been experiencing. "A pity," she said, and that was all. They came to the door and Zelda pushed it open, holding it for Paya and then following her inside.

The interior of the laboratory was wide and spacious, the walls lined with work stations and tables and tools of a variety that beggared the imagination. The room was lit by the sun coming in through the windows and by gas lamps. There were ancient sheikah torches as well, though they were dull and dark. What caught Zelda's attention, though, nearly arrested her completely, was the enormous guidance stone next to the entrance, which looked nearly identical to the stones that stood atop the sheikah towers or inside of the shrines on the plateau. It gave off no light, had no energy coursing through it, but she could _see_ it, could practically _feel_ the potential crackling around it like the air before a lightning storm. If she hadn't been aware of the other people in the room she would have run over to it; it took an exercise of will to resist, even then.

The man standing at the rear of the laboratory, sheikah and in his fifties with modest glasses, turned at their entrance, his face shifting over into an expression of benign surprise and then real, genuine shock. "Paya? What are you doing here?"

A young girl, barely old enough to know how to read by Zelda's estimation, was standing on a chair next to a workbench, looking down at a set of schematics. As soon as she heard Paya's name her head snapped up and she looked at the two newcomers, her eyes wide and owlish behind her enormous glasses. She said something under her breath, though Zelda did not catch it.

"Hello, Symin," Paya said, bowing deeply and respectfully. "Please excuse my intrusion." The _my_ there was very deliberate, Zelda knew, excluding her from any wrongdoing. "We have come at the behest of my grandmother to seek Auntie Purah's help. The woman with me," and here she seemed to remember herself, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders, her expression grave and serious as if announcing a foreign dignitary, "is Zelda, crown princess of Hyrule. She has lost her memory, and Grandmother assumes that…"

Sometime during her short speech Paya's eyes had wandered away from Symin and over to the young girl standing at the table, who was frozen in place like a surprised rabbit. Zelda looked from the girl to Paya, whose expression was undergoing an _astonishing_ series of transformations: apology to sincerity to authority to surprise, and then confusion, and then her eyes widened and her jaw slowly fell agape in an expression of shock so severe Zelda wondered briefly if her face would be stuck that way. The girl, on her part, was wincing more and more visibly the longer Paya looked at her. She reached up, adjusted her glasses.

" _Auntie Purah?_ "

"Um, Paya," Zelda said, her own confusion outstripping her need to keep from embarrassing her companion, the energy in the air strange enough that she could not parse it, "this girl is only six or seven. I hardly think—"

" _HOW!?"_ The girl jumped down from the chair, stomping her way across the lab, stopping in front of Paya and placing her fists firmly on her hips. Paya recoiled as if she was about to be struck. "I haven't looked like this in a _hundred and twenty years!_ Impa hadn't even been _born_ when I was this old! How could you _possibly_ have known it was me?"

Mouth pressed into a thin line, hand shaking like a leaf in the wind, Paya pointed to her own eyes.

"Eyes? What do you—" The girl—who Zelda had not yet accepted was Purah but had accepted that she was doing a very good job pretending to be—reached up and touched the frame of her glasses. "Oh."

"Y-y-you never let anyone w-w-wear those," Paya said, in a tone that spoke from personal experience.

The girl exhaled noisily through her nose, inhaled, then actually huffed. "Fine! I guess it makes sense. I don't know how you could _possibly_ make the leap in logic necessary to guess, but… it doesn't matter!" She set her feet apart, pointed directly at Zelda. "You want help!" Zelda nodded, bewildered, and the girl pointed at Paya. " _You_ want to help her!"

"Y-yes, Auntie!"

"The fire in the furnace is out! If the fire's not lit then the guidance stone won't work and I can't do anything for the Sheikah Slate! Which one of you is a faster runner?" Paya timidly raised her hand. "That's what I thought. I need you to go back to the bottom of the hill and retrieve the blue flame from the kiln! You must have seen it on your way up here!" She only came up to Paya's waist, but the effect of her leaning in and stomping toward Paya was immediate—the taller woman began to retreat as if physically pushed. "Take that torch!" Paya grabbed it. Realizing how far that was to run, Zelda unhooked the paraglider from her back and handed it to Paya, who received it as if in a daze. "It's probably going to rain up here, so your torch might be put out if you don't stay under cover! Light the lamps on your way up so you won't lose your progress if the fire goes out! Hurry up, hurry up, time's wasting and there's a world to save!"

"Yes, Auntie!" Paya let herself be pushed out the door, turned, bowed formally to the six-year-old girl, and then started sprinting toward the cliff in the direction that would take her most directly toward the kiln. A lucky thing, Zelda thought, that they had taken turns practicing using the paraglider to cross long distances.

"And _don't tell Impa about this!"_ She slammed the door with all the force of her tiny body, which shouldn't have been very much but still shook dust from the rafters. As soon as Paya was out of sight she buried her face in her hands, slipping her fingers under her glasses to rub at her eyes in a very practiced motion. "She's going to tell her. She won't be able to help it. I should just write Impa a letter and explain what happened."

"Paya is very dutiful," Zelda said, partially because it was true and partially because she did not want ill to be spoken of her companion because of her faithfulness to her grandmother.

The tiny head snapped up, glasses instantly adjusted, and the girl walked back to the table and noisily dragged a chair over to Zelda. Once it was close enough she hopped on top of it, then stood on her tiptoes to look Zelda in the eyes. Zelda, for her part, did _not_ quail at a child's inspection, but something about it was familiar and authoritative in a way that could have made her nervous if she let it.

"It's really you," Purah said, and the relief in her voice matched her expression softening. "Oh, Princess. It's been so long. And your memory's gone?" Zelda nodded, and Purah nodded in turn. "It's as we hypothesized, then. I wish we had been able to test that chamber out, tested the Slumber of Restoration, but…" Then she shrugged. "Robbie and I always used to joke that it would be Link who needed it. You never did find those jokes funny."

"Didn't I?" It did sound awfully macabre.

"Here, let me see the slate." She did not snatch it from Zelda's hands as one might expect of a child; instead she held it carefully, almost tenderly, like someone greeting an old friend they had not seen in a long time. As she ran her fingers over the surface of its screen, Zelda believed that this was in truth Purah. She could not have guessed at why she had the body of a child, but that look of yearning, of being reunited, was too real. "It's very beautiful still, isn't it? We spent days at a time trying to plumb its mysteries. I remember it took most of a year just to restore its ability to store photographs." _Store them?_ At that, Zelda's mind began to race, so much so that she almost missed the way Purah looked at her over the rim of her glasses, suddenly teasing and proud. "I ended up building one of my own, you know."

That hit her like a splash of water in the face. "You… built one?" _She has the secrets of the technology she can tell me so much she can fix this she can help me with my memories she can repair the slate and help me to understand everything about it, about everything_ and the possibilities spiraled out from there like flower petals multiplying in fractal patterns that would fill up the entire universe.

"You betcha!" She struck a pose as if she was about to be painted, which seemed ridiculous except that she was so small that it nearly worked. "Took me the better part of a century, but we put together documentation nearly as good as having the object itself right in front of me." She looked at Zelda then, and something in her face must have betrayed her mind because Purah reached over, hand in front of Zelda's face, and she was so focused on her thoughts that she did not notice.

Then Purah flicked her on the nose.

"Ow!" She brought up her hand out of reflex, cupping it over her nose, glaring at the girl. "Why did you do that?"

"Because you were navel-gazing," Purah said, and then she laughed. "You know you haven't changed at all? Even your expression when you get angry is exactly as I remember it." It was not a calming sentiment, but Zelda knew she hadn't meant it to be, and Purah's grin grew wider. "Listen, if my little sister sent you here to help with your memory, it must have been because of something specific. Why don't you tell me about it?

 _Little sister?_ But tell her Zelda did, spinning out the whole thing: the lost photographs, the potential recovery of her memory, the journey over, and Paya's accompaniment. While she talked Symin made his way over and set out tea for the two of them, and the two of them sat and drank while Zelda talked.

When she was finished, Purah nodded. "Well, it's as good a shot as any. Restoring your power probably _is_ contingent on your memories. It will still be a couple of hours before Paya makes it back, but when she lights the furnace I should be able to restore that functionality to it."

"I think you underestimate how fast Paya can be," Zelda said, taking a sip from her tea, wondering what the other woman's sustained running speed was like. She suspected that, if she wanted to, Paya could probably outrun a horse.

"Yeah, well, our family has a history of being underestimated." Purah gestured with an inclination of her head, nearly pointing with her chin. "You see that guidance stone over there? That's the real secret of why I've been able to make my own Sheikah Slate, and test out new functionalities for it. Once it's running I won't just be able to restore your slate's photographs, I can probably enhance most of its runes."

Finally, at last, Zelda found her own reason to grin, to lean in. "You know, I had been wondering about just such a thing not too long ago! The amount of energy that the slate can put out seems almost preposterous, but it's also _inconsistent_ , in its way. The ability to move metallic objects of such great size with no effort from the user, or to shunt thermal energy so efficiently to create ice from running water, suggests that its power source is unbelievably potent on top of being bottomless. But this doesn't seem to be reflected in its other functions!"

Purah nodded in sudden, excited energy, and in the corner Symin wondered where his earplugs were. "Yes! Yes, that's it exactly! I've been poring over _just such a question_ for decades, and I think I've found the answer to it! It doesn't work for _my_ slate, it doesn't have all the same runes as yours, but based on our hypotheses from the old days we should be able to enhance the functionality of yours so that its energy output is more even and regulated. I think that the concussive force of your bombs could be as much as doubled or tripled, and the stasis you can apply to objects—though we shouldn't underestimate the energy intensity of being able to _locally stop time_ —could also be applied to your enemies!"

Zelda spent a few brief seconds thinking of being confronted by a Yiga assassin, freezing them in place, and being given precious moments to act before them. Or how one might be able to apply that power to fighting a Hinox. Or a Guardian. "Really?"

"Yes! But that's not even the best part, I think, not for you." She waved to Symin, who had been standing apart and trying hard to blend into the bookshelves. "Symin! Get over here! What kind of lab assistant are you, not being here when I need you!" Symin _was_ nearby enough to attend almost as soon as she said this, but that eased her expression not at all. "Tell the princess about the compendium! I bet no one in the _world_ could get better use out of it than she will!"

This was another of moment of true and unfettered joy that Zelda had during her quest, that short, precious hour before Paya returned that she spent speaking to a pair of educated researchers. They did not have enough time, as Symin outlined the exact mechanics of using the Sheikah Slate to catalog the flora, as she and Purah had arguments about the exact comparative and intersectional physics of the different functions of the slate, to answer all the questions she had. Still, she would remember this moment, and in the days to come she would return here again.

* * *

Twelve decades did Impa count as her own, though she was no longer sure. At that age, no one could _really_ be sure what one's birthday had been; even ignoring the effects of the Calamity, the intervening years were so great that her birth was no longer actually in living memory. Her relationship with her own age, with _time_ , had changed since her younger days. A day was not so much to her, any more; to stay reclined in one place, to rest on her laurels while the world moved outside of her home, to meditate on herself and the world and the things she hoped and feared, was easier than the simple act of getting up and moving about and retrieving food for oneself.

She wasn't lonely without Paya, not exactly. Impa had never been lonely in her life; she wouldn't be familiar with the feeling if it clung to her back. But still, it was good to have her granddaughter with her, lending order and routine to the day.

 _All right_ , she said to herself, _I had better get something to eat, or else I'm going to be too tired to get up and go to bed_. She set her hands on her legs, stretched the muscles in her back. She was not infirm—by Hylia's blessing and simple stubbornness she would never be unable to walk under her own power so long as she lived—but it did take a great deal of focus to set the machinery in motion. There was pumpkin stew stored in jars in the pantry, rich with goat cheese and spiced with enough herbs to clear the sinuses. That sounded good, once she got it heated.

She breathed in, breathed out, and then heard two sets of footsteps proceeding rapidly up the staircase outside. Not running, but _trotting_ , a speed without panic but with purpose. "This quickly?" She spoke her thoughts aloud, stretching her vocal cords. "I thought it would be at least a few more days."

She straightened her back and fixed her posture just in time for the princess to push the front door open. The light from outside was bright, bright enough to briefly throw the two girls into silhouette, and then they were inside and shutting the door behind them. Impa's eyes took a few seconds to re-adjust to the relative darkness that had been so comfortable a few moments before.

"Pardon the intrusion, Impa," Zelda said, "but Purah said we should return to you straight away." The lilt of her voice had not been changed by the passage of time or by the experience of death; nor had her posture, which was straight-backed and authoritative without being presumptuous. A kind authority. For one moment Impa became unmoored in time, the darkness of her vision blurring the image of the young woman in front of her so that she was radiant in gold, and she was twenty years old again and standing at attention while waiting to hear what new mysteries her sister and the princess had unlocked.

"Of course, Zelda." Then the feeling passed and Zelda was standing in front of her, one hundred years after the calamity, wearing the stealth suit she had procured from Claree. She had been wrong, too: Zelda _had_ changed. She could remember the time when the burden of her duty had weighed down on her constantly, an enormous pressure that had nearly crushed her. The young woman who looked at Impa now was not like that; her eyes were wide and open and eager and friendly and trusting, as if she had never been hurt in her life, as if the fact of picking up the burden and choosing it for herself was a shield. _How important a fresh start is_ , Impa thought.

Paya, in contrast, was so pale that she looked as if she might pass out at any moment. "Paya, whatever is the matter?"

Paya did not answer, just shook her head and looked as if she was trying not to fall over.

Zelda answered in her stead, "When Purah said that we should return to you, I proposed that we attempt teleportation together. Purah's work is quite amazing, she's managed to create a travel gate directly outside of her laboratory, so the most we would lose if Paya didn't come along with me would be the time it took—" She caught herself, inhaled. "I'm sorry. Talking to the professor has been very stimulating, and I'm still in a state of excitement. Suffice to say, we _did_ manage to teleport back here together, but Paya found the experience… disorienting." This language was purposefully gentle; Paya looked like she might vomit at any moment, after which she would almost definitely keel over dead from shame.

"Paya," Impa said, using the same voice she had used when Paya was very small, "lie on your back, close your eyes, and breath slowly through your mouth. Count your breaths. _Silently_." She could see the relief on her granddaughter's face at being given a remedy. That was not actually a cure for nausea, of course, or at least she didn't _think_ it was, but that hardly mattered; Paya was on her back, eyes closed, and focusing on her breathing. "Good girl." She gestured to Zelda. "Is the Sheikah Slate restored?"

"Restored _and_ enhanced," Zelda said, holding it out to her. Impa took it from her as she continued, "You see, it turns out that the parameters for the Sheikah Slate are really governed by," and that is where Impa realized that she _had_ been talking to Purah, and that she would not be able to participate in the same way her older sister had. She tuned Zelda out in the same way she would tune Purah out; not out of disrespect or because she didn't care but because she wouldn't be able to contribute in a way that they would find meaningful, and her attention was better spent elsewhere.

"Mmhmm," and, "would you mind elaborating?" were weapons she deployed according to the tone and lilt of her partner's speech; she had been doing this for so long, with so many people, that she could effectively hold a conversation without ever hearing a word the other person said. She had done it with Zelda only once, when the girl had been fifteen and explaining how a Guardian's weapon systems worked; to return to that time made her feel nostalgic.

She flipped through the different functionalities of the slate, brightened when she noticed that Zelda had apparently taken photographs (and made some sort of informational logs?) of a dozen or so different plants and animals on her short trip from Purah's lab to Impa's house. Then she flipped to a different page, separate from everything else, a section of the slate that seemed locked down before. Three rows of four pictures, each depicting a landscape or structure, each out of date. The white walls of Hyrule Castle were pristine in more than one of these.

She looked up sharply, and Zelda's talking stopped. The princess's eyebrows were raised, expression expectant, and once against Impa wondered at her. "Yes?"

"I recognize these photographs," Impa said, and in some secret place in her heart she was proud to have remembered that word. "You took them as you traveled with the hero, to chronicle your pilgrimage." She held the slate up, screen turned so that Zelda could see, and was pleased when the girl leaned in, expression curious. "This is your recording of your own memories. Return to these places that were once so important to you, that marked such major events in your life, and I believe that _some_ part of your memory will return."

"Could it really be that simple?" Zelda was not doubting; she was curious, even excited at the prospect. "Can context and place really be such an effective trigger for recollection?"

"We cannot know for sure, but it is the best hope that we have. Do you see this particular photo, here? I recognize this; it is the east gate of Lanayru Road, on the edge of Naydra Snowfield at the foot of Mount Lanayru. Leave the village to the north, past the path you took here from the shrine, and head east once you reach a fork in the road. Follow it to the gate." Did she dare to believe that it would work? Could she be so arrogant as to invest her own assumptions into this woman who would do the work of the gods? Did she have a choice? "If one of your memories should be restored to you, return to me. We will speak more then."

Carefully, gingerly, Zelda took the slate from her hands, switched it into a dormant state, and affixed it to her hip. Her jaw was set, her eyes calm and determined as she nodded. "We will go at once, and return to you with news, one way or another." Paya was already up on her feet, apparently feeling much better. "I am sorry that I must leave so abruptly."

"Pah," Impa said, waving them away, and both girls bowed to her (Paya's formal and perfect, Zelda's equally formal but wrong in subtle ways; she was just copying what Paya was doing, and the deference of her posture made Impa a little dizzy). They turned to leave, and as Paya reached to the door she remembered that she _herself_ was leaving out an essential duty. "Before you go—how fares my elder sister?"

Zelda flinched, and Paya froze up before turning to her with an almost agonizing slowness. In a hundred and twenty years she had never seen anyone make exactly the same face that her granddaughter was making; she could not begin to pick it apart.

Instead she sighed. "Never mind. You can tell me later." Paya bowed again, and then they were gone. "Well, Purah, whatever you did it's got your great niece in knots. Now I'm curious."

She hopped down from her cushions and began the long, slow journey to make herself some lunch.

* * *

Zelda had never been down that path before, focused as she had been on the pressing particulars of her journey. They passed near to the fairy fountain, agreeing that, even though it would be best to make an offering to improve their fortunes, times was of the essence and they needed to act as quickly as possible; they would stop by it on their way back.

There was a disguised Yiga on the road, and they gave him a wide enough berth that he did not immediately identify them. Paya could feel eyes on their backs, but that feeling went away once they were far enough from the village.

Walking along the road they walked at a good but relaxed pace, discussed when they would return to their horses, how best to transfer them, whether teleporting would be effective on a creature so large. There were beasts on the road, because of course there were, and many of them carried hunting horns. A river ran beside the road, and looking down into the water they spotted lizalfos; they were probably out of range of any attacks, but one could never be sure with the creatures. They did not _fight_ as they went, did not give their enemies the chance; each of them snuck up on bokoblins or moblins and dealt them killing blows from behind, throwing stones to draw attention away from their approaches. The beasts that swam in the water were struck by shock arrows; none of them survived the initial impact.

So it was that they made their way down the road. They found a shrine hidden behind a waterfall, which had a feeling like magic, and talked about possibilities and shrines and ancient things, and Paya prepared a meal while Zelda addressed the trial of the shrine. They did not discuss the trial, because Paya did not dare to ask and Zelda did not want to impose on her; that is how it always went.

They came to the gate as the sun began to set.

* * *

Paya watched Zelda, as she had been watching her for days, as the princess's attention was pulled into the Sheikah Slate. As they walked toward the gate Zelda kept glancing at the photo of it then back up at her environment, comparing an artificial memory to the living world around them, brow knit and serious and grave. Paya watched Zelda, and that required watching the world _around_ the princess, seeing the things that she did not or could not see.

In the distance a lynel lurked, but they were out of its line of sight; she only knew it was there from the distant, low hum of its breathing, at the way it would roar challenge to the open air. From this far away, Zelda would only think it a trick of the wind blowing through the stones of the canyon; Paya would tell her differently, but only once the princess's concentration had borne fruit.

"This is it," Zelda said, looking at her, and there was hope but also fear in her eyes, a wateriness. "This is it." _She doesn't know if she wants it, but she will take it up anyway. Oh, Zelda…_

"Please, take all the time you need to."

Zelda nodded, looked back at the slate, enlarging the picture until it took up the whole of her vision. She looked up, and Paya could see that her perspective matched that in the photograph.

When that perspective slid into place, she could _feel_ the change in Zelda. This was not an empathetic link; the ground heaved, once, as if it wanted to quake. In the distance, a terrible roar grew much louder, changing from one of challenge to one of open aggression.

"Princess!" Instantly she was at Zelda's side, reaching out to her, touching her lightly on the shoulder. "We have to go, now! There's a beast coming that we're not strong enough to fight!" Zelda did not respond; was she so focused, so _entranced_ , that words did not reach her? "Zelda, we have to—"

The Princess's eyes stared into nothing, and her pupils were not black; they were golden, as bright as the sun, _brighter_ than the sun, brighter than anything Paya had ever seen.

The roar gave way to thunder as hooves the size of a man's torso pounded against soil and then stone.

Paya saw the course of her life written out in front of her, then, and understood better than her years would have suggested. Whatever was happening to Zelda now was important, was _vital_ , was essential to the continued survival of the world. She did not know if it could be repeated. She did not know if stopping it was possible. She did not know if stopping it would kill her charge.

A nightmare rounded the corner, a combination of horse and man and lion and ram, six-limbed, a man's torso rising out of the body of a horse crowned with the head of a lion, and it was all out of scale, the creature must have been over fifteen feet tall, and it wore armor across its breast and carried a sword and shield in its hand. This was the expression of Ganon's power, _this_ was the malice and darkness given form to serve its master. It met her eyes from a great distance and she knew that it would kill her, kill them both.

She could grab Zelda and try to run. With all her speed she might be able to make it to the water, but the earth shook at its approach and the lynel bellowed and she knew that that was untrue, foolishness, fear. She could not take Zelda away. She could not fight it.

 _I can try to pull Zelda away and cut short this thing that must happen or I can fight it and buy her… a second. Perhaps two._

Her shield of the mind's eye was in her left hand; her eight-fold blade was in her right. She positioned herself between the princess and this thundering apocalypse, lowered herself into a defensive posture, and prayed to Hylia like she had never prayed before in her life, wordless and all feeling and fear and hope and regret. She should have thought of her duty, of her goddess, of her grandmother, of her village, of her clan. Instead she thought only of Zelda, who she had failed so terribly.

 _Forgive me_.

Death roared toward her, sword in hand.

* * *

Fate hinged on the power of moments, of fragments, of thoughts barely communicated.

* * *

They were waiting for her at the gate. Of course they were, of course they had come to her expecting her triumph, expecting that this time, _this time_ she would not fail Hyrule, would not fail them all.

 _They hope for so much of me_ , she said, and she could feel the pressure pushing from behind her eyes but she fought it down, down, tried to anchor herself in the world around her, counted her own footsteps, counted his. She would not shame herself further with some selfish display of emotion. He was next to her. It would have to be enough.

It was Daruk, Daruk who saw all the other champions as his charges and wards ( _even me_ ), who was first to reach out to her.

"Well? Don't keep us in suspense." He leaned in close to her, lowering his face to her level, matched his pace to hers as she walked. She couldn't look at him. That he was so open with his anxieties was a bad sign; if he was in this state then she could only guess at the others, at the kingdom. "How'd everything go up there on the mountain?"

 _I felt nothing. I waited for hours in prayer and with every passing minute I could feel the dread growing inside of me as the silence grew sharper and I knew that my own dread was the source of my failure and then that that wasn't it, that this had never been inside of me at all that I'm empty that I'm not what I'm supposed to be that I never was that the world is falling and it's my fault._

If she spoke these words she would lose herself; instead she shook her head. She felt the hope bleed out of Daruk's posture as it gave way to something else. She felt their eyes on her, eyes from all directions, disappointment and shame drilling into her like spearpoints biting into her flesh.

Revali stepped forward; when he spoke, his voice was gentle. "So you didn't feel anything? No power at all?" Such a small thing, the tone of his voice, how he invested no judgment of her or her failure, but it was enough to give her her words back.

"I'm sorry, no." She could not look at them. She looked at the ground, at nothing, and still their eyes were on her.

"Then let's move on. You've done all you could." Urbosa's voice was like a mother's, accepting instantly of what was missing in her, and that unconditional support stung at her eyes and squeezed at her throat. "Feeling sorry for yourself won't be of any help. After all, it's not like your last shot was up there on Mt. Lanayru." Daruk nodded; the hope was not dead. "Anything could finally spark the power to seal Ganon away. We just have to keep looking for that… thing."

"That's kind of you." Kindness was not kindness, not on its own; it was a pillar that refused to let her fall, told her she had to keep shouldering this, had to keep failing. The gods had given her a fate to make her spurn love and choke on hope; did that give her the right to do the same to others? Could she help it, if being what the world needed was so far out of her reach, if the only thing she could offer to others was sorrow? "Thank you."

"If I may…"

Mipha stepped into her line of sight, and she could not have said why but it was only at the Zora princess that she finally responded by raising her eyes, by shakily making eye contact. Mipha was a great healer, a kind and generous heart, and a symbol of pride and hope for her people. King Dorephan had wept after announcing that his daughter would be Champion; Zelda would never forget the sight. She was small and meek and fierce and terrible in turn, a pillar to her people and to the kingdom, and in her Zelda saw the things that she could not be. She did not hate her; that had given way a long time ago to raw, unpolished admiration that bordered on envy.

"I thought you…" Now Mipha would not meet her eyes, though she stepped closer. "Well, I'm not sure how to put this into words…" Then they locked eyes, gold and blue, and there was a vulnerability being expressed here, a confession so stark that for just one instant, just the span of this moment, her failure and shame slipped away from her. "I'm actually quite embarrassed to say it. But I was thinking about what I do when I'm healing. You know, what usually goes through my mind…"

Zelda breathed in, held it.

"It helps when I think—when I think about the one I love."

That word was a jewel passed between them, radiant, catching the light of the setting sun, and Zelda caught it and held it to her breast. There were so many _kinds_ of love, but in Mipha's voice she could hear what sort as plainly as if she had spoken the words herself.

The jewel was inside of her. She looked inward, saw the light reflected there.

Out of instinct she looked back at him, at the hero assigned as her guardian. He met her gaze with steady, calm eyes, and the same stalwart strength he had carried in every step of their journey.

"Oh," she said.

Then there was a golden radiance inside of her, and in the distance a cloud rose as the calamity broke its chains.

* * *

Paya prepared to die in defense of her princess, and the lynel roared in what might have been triumph.

There was a sound like the chiming of a bell, the singing of a vast bird, the anvil-ringing at the forging of creation.

Zelda's hand reached from behind her, past her shoulder, past her face. Her palm was open, fingers splayed. The sound, the _tone_ , was louder than the lynel's voice.

Light the color of dawn filled the world.

* * *

Zelda stood where the lynel had been; the unleashing of the power inside of her had obliterated it so utterly that there was nothing left, not hide nor horn nor steel of its weapons. She could still feel that power, a suffusion of every cell in her body with an energy that defied communication. The Sheikah Slate was like a child's toy in comparison to what she had done just now.

 _Is this the power I was seeking? Did it awaken in that moment? If it did, why did I fail? How terrible the Calamity?_

She heard Paya get up, turned to face her. She realized moisture was standing on her eye, reached up absently with the back of her hand, found her entire cheek soaked. She had been crying, _weeping_ , and not known it.

"Princess?" Paya's voice was all the concern in the world. There was no expectation there, only protectiveness, only duty. "Zelda? Zelda, are you all right?"

"I think I loved him." She looked at Paya, no longer trying to wipe her face. Her whole being was suffused with power, she could feel herself changing, did not know yet what that meant. Some echo of herself from a hundred years ago, the pain and the fear and the guilt and the shame and the hope and the love, was in her still.

Paya walked toward her, her flinch so subtle that Zelda missed it. "Loved who, Your Grace?"

Yes. Of course she remembered his name.

"Link."


	7. Interlude — The Calamity

The blood of the goddess sang a high note that echoed out across the world, held out by the hand of a woman who, a century past, did not know if she even wanted it. It was not heard by every living thing; it reverberated on a level too low, too fundamental, to be known to most of the creatures that upheld the law. But on a distant mountain, a guardian god looked up in recognition; across Hyrule, dragons heard the high, clear note of the voice that had charged them in the time before time; a guardian rooted deep in the woods breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in longer than he could remember. Those most sensitive heard. The gods heard.

The Calamity heard.

In the rhythm of its unending combat with the hero it pushed against the boundaries of the walls that held it in, the still-holding bands of creation that creaked under the pressure it exerted. The combat did not stop. Rest came only rarely, for moments, and this was not one of those times. Still, without waiting for an opportunity the Calamity _heaved_ , sending its power out into the earth.

Hyrule shook with the force of an earthquake that would swallow the entire kingdom. The inhabitants of the realm braced themselves, as they had been bracing themselves for a century against the earth writhing in pain beneath them. Death Mountain began to erupt once more, and the divine beasts, cloaked in Malice, bellowed their dominance over a world that could not lift a hand to them. Snow fell in avalanches and stone was shaken loose in rockslides and water leaped like a living thing, pressed up by a power far greater than itself, and all over Hyrule the earth groaned in agony.

Fissures opened in the ground—not great chasms, not swallowers of villages, but small things like wounds being torn open after healing. Light and darkness and smoke and death billowed out of them, and the souls of the beasts slain were restored, so that bokoblin and moblin and lizalfos were renewed, and they knew that they were undying and their laughter filled the countryside beyond the borders of the villages. Those people who braced themselves knew that for days the roads would be more perilous and travel more fraught as the reborn beasts asserted their dominance.

This was the Bleeding Earth, the wounds wrought by Ganon.

Only one creature was not restored: a lynel, obliterated by golden light, so completely destroyed that the Malice could find no purchase.

The battle was rejoined, but the Calamity left itself open for one moment longer.

* * *

The sanctum of Hyrule Castle was engulfed in light the color of fire, and the Calamity roared to quell the hopes of the gods.

The projectile that launched from the keep burned like a sun; few would be able to recognize it for what it was, for a century had passed since the last time such a thing was unleashed. It streaked across the sky, east and south, darkening the sky behind it, its tail curling off like living worms that ate at the light of the sun before burning away. It made a sound, but only a quiet one, logs burning in a fireplace.

It sailed lazily, as if lobbed by the hands of an uncaring giant, and the arc of its trajectory resolved as it streaked down to the gate of the Lanayru Road.

The Calamity heard the song of creation and here was its answer, spoken in fire and hate.

The magic struck. There was a flash of light and an overwhelming wall of darkness, Malice and soil and shattered stone sent into the air in a geyser so high and so forceful that it could be seen from atop the walls of Gerudo Town, could be heard as a faint boom from Death Mountain. The gate was shattered, blasted away alongside the mountain surrounding it, and rained down in chunks for miles in every direction. As the soil and the fire fell away it left behind a storm of lightning and darkness and a roar that was very nearly laughter. That storm would continue for hours, bringing death to anything foolish enough to wander into it.

One could not recognize the place where the Calamity had struck; for all intents and purposes, it had ceased to exist. It was a smooth depression, smoking with an acrid darkness that matched the hue of the storm that raged above it, and every feature and living thing that had once been framed there was gone as if they'd never existed.

High, high atop Lanayru Mountain, on the side facing out toward the ocean, there was a sound like jingling bells as a gathering of spirits tried to figure out what had happened.

Why would the voice of the goddess ring out so clearly, and then stop?


	8. Mount Lanayru

The space in which the goddess spoke to her was a place of perfect clarity, not darkness but _nothingness_ , the cradle in which knowledge might rock, waiting to pull itself out into the world. That was how she had come to think of it: a birthplace, a _kiln_ , in which the act of knowing became an act of creation. It was empty and clean and safe.

But now. _Now_.

Now the emptiness was stricken with a sickness, an oily film that clung to the very fabric of creation, every atom of her being and every mote of consciousness twisted up with the corruption. _The Malice_ , she thought, knowing the word though she did not remember it. _It's here. It's_ everywhere _, how…_

But the sickness ate at her, weighing on her thoughts, pushing down, down the golden light that was calling her name. She held on to consciousness-within-consciousness as fiercely as she'd ever fought for anything in her life, until this moment she didn't know what willpower was because she had never had to test it like this, but the Malice clung to her, crushed her.

 _Am I dying_? she wondered, and she was.

* * *

Paya stopped, bending forward at the waist, adjusted Zelda's weight on her back. Breathed in, breathed out. Straightened herself and continued walking, shifting her grip on Zelda's arms so that she did not place too much pressure on any one place for too long. She didn't want to cause nerve damage, didn't want to cut off blood flow, didn't want Zelda to die on her back and she began to hum to herself because entertaining those thoughts would kill her, kill them both, she had to keep the thoughts out and so she hummed, a nonsense tune without real rhythm, just noise.

When the fireball had descended she had looked up at it and thought that the moon had caught fire and was falling toward them. A strange thought; why hadn't she thought of the falling stars that occasionally fell all over Hyrule? But it had been the moon she had thought of, terrible and pure and burning and full of hate. It had fallen toward _them_ , too, just as Zelda was telling her that she had remembered something. She had reacted out of panic at seeing it, had thrown her body at Zelda's, seeking to shield her from oblivion or join her in it.

There had been a tone, a ringing bell like the one that had rung when Zelda had destroyed the lynel but softer, gentler, the quietest thing in the world, a subtle flexing of power that seemed altogether too little. A flash of golden light as she had looked at Zelda's face, and then the world had been lost in noise and violence and light and pain.

She did not remember the pain, just that it had been painful. That was probably a mercy, and as she walked she wondered if it was thanks to Zelda or thanks to the defenses of her own body, its willingness to forget things which, if remembered, would prevent its function. She remembered a sound that should have crushed her, reduced her bones to powder, but it had been muffled as if on the other side of a very thick wall.

That was everything she could recall. She had regained sense of herself in the center of a blasted wasteland, and it wasn't until she looked toward Mount Lanayru that she had realized they had not moved at all. That thought, in and of itself, would have been enough to send her into a panic, but she fought it down, down. That didn't matter. The fact that they were standing in the center of a crater rimmed with fire the color of nightshade and moonless nights, that they should have both been dead and less than dead with their ashes scattered so far that they could never be recovered, that the enormous hand of an angry god could have smitten the firmament and effected no change more severe than this, none of that mattered. She was alive. She could move. Zelda was at her feet, unconscious.

 _I must get her out of here_ , she thought, and so she had. Her hands had been steady as she lifted Zelda into a standing position, and when one of them dared to shake as she was locking Zelda's knees she bit hard into the flesh at the base of her thumb, clamping down until she thought she would draw blood, but the shaking stopped first. Carefully, _carefully_ Paya draped the princess's arms around her own neck, lifting her like a backpack, and began to walk.

The going, in some ways, was not hard. Paya was strong, and Zelda was not very heavy. In other ways, though, when she looked up into the sky and saw the raging storm of wind and lightning and darkness that ate at the very air around it, heard the howling of a maelstrom that should have killed them as it was born and should have killed them again, now, in its infancy, she felt a weakness in her legs.

"Please, Your Grace," she said, caught herself. "Please, Zelda. Forgive me for my failures, and hold on for a little while. I will… I will see you to safety." She could not imagine what safety looked like; she could not imagine what safety would _be_ , compared to whatever power had just tried to destroy them. The mountain was holy; on some level she knew that did not matter, but on another she knew that she could not go back down the road, where monsters had just been reborn from the Bleeding Earth. So, she walked toward the mountain, toward a symbol of grace that she hoped would serve the woman she carried.

* * *

The whole of reality was the corruption; she could feel it flowing into her and out of her like air, like water, it was the background of everything. It was not even painful, did not have the _courtesy_ to cause her pain; what it made her feel was some child of both nausea and weakness, a thought-occluding draining of her strength and her sense of self. She did not have her memory; that had slipped away from her already, and the part that she _did_ recall was being eaten away by the Malice.

 _I loved him_ , she thought. She did not feel it now, did not have the perspective necessary to feel it, did not know if she would feel it even with all of her memory returned to her, but that knowledge was precious to her. That was who she had been, what had mattered to her in the distant past, and the person she had once been had fought terribly to possess that knowledge. The Malice slipped into her mind like a hand, tried to grab hold of that thought, and she grasped onto it with the fervor of a dying woman. It was warm, warmer than fire, warmer than a mother's embrace. _Once, long ago, I loved someone. It was a source of strength to me_.

 ** _YOU FAILED_**

The voice of the Malice was everywhere, everything, shaking the entire world, and she could feel the reverberations of its power inside of her. It was a storm, and she was but a person buffeted by a power greater than herself. It hurt now; it hurt tremendously.

The pain was a lance through her reverie, slicing open her fear and her weakness. _If I am in pain then it is trying to hurt me. I don't know how I know that to be true, but it is._

 ** _YOU FAILED_**

In the great darkness of that place she opened her eyes, taking in everything. The goddess was not here; it was her and the Malice in an infinite space. The interior of the soul? She could not say. But whatever this was, it was a place that was supposed to be _hers_ , and the thing attacking her was trying to take it away. More, it was trying to take away _everything_.

 _No_ , she thought. Then, because thought was not enough, she found her voice in that place, and spoke, "No. Whatever you are, I'm investing too much agency to think you are _trying_ to do anything. Whatever did this, the Calamity, possesses some degree of intelligence… but you do not."

 ** _YOU FAILED!_**

The words reverberated in everything, and she had to press her hands against her ears because they were so loud. She was no longer growing weaker, though her strength was not returning. She wondered if that would be reflected in her physical body; had the muscle there been sapped away? Would threads of corruption be wending across her skin? Would Paya see them? _Paya!_

"No. Don't panic. Don't think about her yet, don't think about anything but the problem at hand." There was a… not consciousness, but a central node through which the Malice operated. She could feel it out there, a seed from which roots spread, infecting her and her thoughts. "Some minor part of the greater whole… I don't understand what this is, but I am surer than ever that it is not the Calamity. Still, the Calamity _sent_ it, which means that it is supposed to have been enough to kill me. Or… not? Is death this thing's aim?" She looked at herself, at the darkness that was trying to eat away at every cell of her, and clenched her hands into fists. "I have power… granted by Hylia, perhaps? Would that matter to something like the Calamity? Could it be that it _fears_ it? Covets it?"

A flinch in the darkness, a word achieving resonance with a mind that was not a mind, and she felt some part of her determination flowing back, even over the thunderous **_YOU FAILED_** that shook creation.

"This was not meant to kill me… or if it was, then it was meant to neutralize my power in case of my survival." She looked out into the dark, into the place where the heart of the Malice beat, and shouted, "What do you fear of me, creature? What is it your master would not have me do?" No words in answer, now, just an incoherent bellowing and a surge in the power of the dark, a surge that ate away at the fabric of everything, ate away at _her_ , and she screamed in pain and then in fury. That this thing would kill this place, attempt to kill _her_ , was an affront that she could not have imagined hours ago; she took that agony, that fury, and plunged herself into it. She was Zelda. She was the princess who had failed. She had loved, long ago. She would see the world free of the burden that weighed it down; she would walk free across verdant fields. The pain was cleansing. Her fury enflamed her thoughts, lent clarity to her vision.

The Malice bellowed, and she turned on it, took its measure, reached deep within herself to that place that had been closed to her until love had broken the lock. Deep, deep she reached, down into her ancestral being that ran back into time immemorial, and she did not know how she knew this of herself but she did, and when she called on her strength it was a strength of generations past counting. The Malice bellowed, but she did not raise her voice in turn. She let go of her fury; in its place, she found her purpose. She wrenched it free from within herself.

There was a golden light.

* * *

The fire at the edge of the crater parted for them as she drew near to it, and Paya stepped off the blasted land and onto grass that was kissed by snow. She looked back and saw the flames leap into life again, and wondered at how much of Zelda's power was still working even as she slept. _She protects me even now_ , Paya thought, and she was ashamed and grateful in equal parts, did not know how to reconcile these things. She walked.

Her clothing protected her from the elements; sheikah garb was adapted to almost every climate, regulating body temperature in heat and in cold. Still, she felt it when the air shifted, when the cold became _too_ biting. Quickly she loped toward a rocky outcropping that would shield them from the wind, judging it appropriate to her purposes. Carefully, more carefully than if she were handling her grandmother, Paya set Zelda down upon the ground. She dug out the warm doublet that Zelda had been wearing when she came to Kakariko and put it on the princess in place of the stealth suit's chest piece. After putting away the armor she checked the princess's coloring, pulse, breathing, and temperature.

All normal. She breathed a sigh of relief. Zelda was fine… except that she wouldn't wake up.

"Don't panic," she told herself, and this time they were not her grandmother's words. "Do what you can. Or what you know to do, at least!" Thus spurred she retrieved Zelda's bedroll, laid it out, transferred her onto it, and covered her in blankets. They were shielded from the wind and any snowfall by the outcropping, so that would have to be enough for now. Going through their supplies, she found a very great deal of hot peppers; that would serve them both, she thought, but especially the princess. She would make a few batches of pepper and carp stir fry; it would be enough to last them for a while.

She had piled the wood and struck fire from flint, breathing life into infant flames, when Zelda began to convulse.

Fire forgotten she went to the princess's side, thinking she had awoken; when she realized what was happening her mind went white, and she ripped the blankets away from Zelda, clearing the space around her, loosening the doublet's tie around her throat so she wouldn't choke herself. Then the convulsion shifted over into something else, and Zelda began to _scream_.

* * *

The Malice roared, and she called the power from within herself. The invader was no longer a seed, it was a _thing_ , a blight that slammed against the edge of her awareness, and as the blight pushed against her she pushed back, golden light and flaming darkness forming a barrier between them that made the world shudder.

"Be gone from here!" she called out, and the blight answered with a sound that was equal parts hate and fear. "You will not stop me! I will not _be_ stopped, not any longer!" The power inside of her was a well and that well was _deep_ , extending down into the firmament, down into geological ages that could only be guessed at. She reached deeper and deeper into herself, and the light poured up from it and into her, shattering the malice that clung to her, cleansing her body, infusing her mind. The power was there.

The blight was not the Calamity; whatever its power, it was not a match for her. It never had been, no matter how close it had come to killing her. This knowledge was a surety. She took hold of the golden light in her hands and it was like holding the sun, holding the very beating heart of creation, and she drew deeper and deeper of the well until she could feel the goddess there with her, until _she_ was the radiance at the heart of everything and she could see the blight as a mote upon the surface of her being. With that strength, that burning power, she lashed out.

The blight did not even scream. It writhed, once, and then it shattered like a thing made of clouded crystal, its shards spinning and twinkling and then evaporating into nothing, leaving behind a cool silence and clarity.

She let go of the power and it was outside of herself again and she was in the presence of the goddess.

"My child," Hylia said, and her voice was sorrowful but warm, even proud, and the merest hint of that pride made Zelda's heart swell in her chest. "You have come through a terrible trial."

"There are more to come," Zelda said, not to show her knowledge but because it was true. "This is far from the worst of it."

The goddess nodded. "It is the least of it, though the danger was no less real than in any other moment. When you recovered that memory, recalled yourself as you had been when you first felt your power stirring within you, it returned to you. In response to danger to yourself and to the woman you travel with, you used it; you could do nothing else, or you would have both died." She folded her hands in front of her. "But that you had no choice mattered little; the using of that power created echoes across Hyrule, echoes that reached across the entire land… and were heard by the Calamity."

"It struck out at me," Zelda said, "just as it must have done a hundred years ago. But why? I thought the Calamity was doing battle with the hero." _With Link_. "Does this mean it is now free?"

"The Calamity is still locked in combat," the goddess said, and now her gaze was averted, looking into nothing, and the twin suns of her eyes were soft and regretful. "That has not changed in a century, though it will not last for much longer. No… the Calamity left itself open in hopes of killing you." Then the eyes of the goddess were on her again, and the weight of that consideration was great. "Do you know why?"

On the one hand, the question was absurd; Ganon was not a person, if it had ever truly been one, and did not think in the same way that persons did. Whether more complex than her own thoughts or less, she could not guess at the machinations of its mind any more than she could a storm's, or a fire's, or a god's.

"But still," she said to herself, "the answer seems obvious." She faced her goddess, trying to seem as great as the task that had been laid upon her, to seem worthy of it. "It fears the power I carry."

"It fears _one_ of them," the goddess said, and smiled wanly at the shock that rocked Zelda. "Yes, daughter. You are the carrier of two powers, and therein lies the true danger that threatens everything." She reached out with her hand, and though it was vaster than worlds it was the size of a woman's hand as it tapped two fingers against the bone of Zelda's chest. "The first of these powers is mine, carried on the conduit of your blood since before the founding of Hyrule. It is a strength that Ganon hates more than any other single thing and fears to the exclusion of all else. The hero and his sword are weapons by which the Calamity has been laid low an uncountable number of times… but in every lifetime, every iteration of this cycle, it is _my_ power, carried by _your_ family, that he most fervently seeks to extinguish. It is the key to defeating him, and has always been."

And that was why it had tried to kill her. "And the other power?"

Now Hylia drew close to her, and Zelda's sense of perspective was rendered useless; was the goddess the size of a person, or had Zelda herself grown to fill the cosmos? Were they separate at all? "That is the last secret, the one thing above which all others he _covets_. You cannot feel it within yourself yet, but as memory returns to you, you will. It is the very engine of creation, the power of the old gods who made the world, the power by which the world might be remade in whatever shape a heart desires. Nothing is beyond it, no wish too mighty."

She thought, instantly, of wishing the Calamity away.

In answer to that thought Hylia's arms enshrouded her and drew her against the goddess, and light and safety and warmth infused her. It should have been something to make her feel at peace, but it did not; she knew it was there to cushion the blow of what was to come next.

"There is the real danger," the goddess said, and her voice was coming from within Zelda now. "Ganon seeks that power, and he is clever beyond imagining, his cunning honed over conflicts too numerous to count. That power _cannot_ be wielded against him until his defeat is assured, until all power and form is stripped away from him, because if it is wielded too early then Ganon may _steal it_ , and everything will be lost. That was the danger of the Blight that was sent against you; it was not here to kill you, but to seek out and steal the strength you wield. If it found only my power, well enough, and the world would be lost; if it found the _other_." She did not finish the thought. She did not have to.

"I am afraid," Zelda said, and it was true.

"We are both afraid," the goddess said, and the more she spoke the less Zelda was able to distinguish that voice from her own. "Do not use that power until the very last moment, when victory is already in hand. I invest myself in you, as I have invested myself in each of your ancestors, in your mother and her mother on back through every age. As you regain your own memory, you will regain my perspective. Until then, know that your heart is my heart; your fears are my fears; your loves are my loves."

"Will I speak to you again?" She did not know why she felt she was losing out so terribly, but she did.

"No," the goddess said, and her tears were an ocean that flowed through Zelda's eyes. "I can offer you no more guidance, my daughter… but I will be with you, for each step of your journey. We are _all_ with you, myself and every woman in your line that I have guided, and we will do everything we can to help you."

"I am afraid," Zelda said, "of failing again." There; it was out, and it was true, and that fear was greater than her memory, greater than its loss, greater than her awareness. The world rested on her back and it was heavy, so terribly heavy.

"You will not fail," she said in answer to herself, with the goddess's voice. It was not a promise, nor a command, nor even a statement of fact; it was an oath. "You are the light of Hyrule; shine on it, and save us all."

* * *

The world fell away, calm and warmth and light replaced with dark, and cold, and pain. Her entire body was tensed like a single muscle, the pain brilliant, almost _blinding_ , as every part of her from the soles of her feet to the tendons in her neck had been contracted for so long that she had begun to cramp. For one terrible moment she thought the pressure of it would snap her bones.

Then something gave, and her body dropped to the ground with a thud (she realized, distantly, that she had been arching her back, and probably on the verge of really hurting herself) as she breathed out a ragged sob. Even _that_ hurt, her throat was raw, it felt like she had been screaming for _days_.

"Ow," she said, because it seemed appropriate. It was just for herself; she did not think about who might have heard it.

"P-Princess?" Paya's voice was above her, and had a very odd quality to it. She was hovering in that particular space where she knew she needed actual physical rest but also hurt too much to stay still. She opened her eyes, looked up at Paya, blinked away the starkness of the light.

"Paya," she said, and her throat _did_ hurt, her voice a croak, "you've been crying." This was half-true; Paya had been crying a _lot_. Her face was blotchy and red around her eyes and cheeks and nose, and most of her face was still covered in a thin sheen of tears and perspiration. And, based on her expression now that Zelda could make it out, she was _still_ crying.

There was one moment where Zelda thought Paya might make a scene; she did not. Instead she turned away, scrubbed at her face with a handkerchief, and then turned back to Zelda with a perfectly neutral expression. Her face was still blotchy, but she'd made a valiant effort.

"You've been unconscious for some time," Paya said, her sinuses audibly clogged but her tone level and controlled. "Near the end you began to… convulse. And scream. I wasn't sure what to do." There was a fire built, and Zelda could smell food cooking on it; Paya managed to be very productive when she wasn't sure what to do, apparently.

"Where are we?" she said, looking around. She sat up; felt no obvious pains. Paya reached to her, was about to tell her not to move, but she put up one hand. "I am drained, Paya, but I am not injured. I promise. Please: where are we?"

"We are at the foot of Lanayru Mountain." It was not clear if she felt rebuffed, but as she talked Paya moved back to the pack where they stored their food and began to unpack some to prepare a second dish. In a bowl she began to prepare rice, herbs, and hearty mushrooms that she cut into thick slices. "After we… after we were struck by whatever that was, back there, you were unconscious, and I knew … rather, I thought I needed to get you away from there. After the Bleeding Earth, I knew that we could not take the road back until you were recovered, so I headed in the opposite direction." _Bleeding Earth_ was a phrase Zelda noted in her mind; that must have been the phenomenon that took place before the Calamity's attack. Revival of the monsters they had slain was involved, though she couldn't say why she knew that.

"You… carried me all the way here?"

Paya nodded, not meeting her eyes. "I would have gone further, but this stone seemed like a good place to spend the night, if we needed to do so."

Zelda shifted her position on the ground so that she could look out toward the snowfield, and the storm of Malice and lightning sent a chill through her, deeper than the cold of the air could reach. The Blight had not existed in a physical space, but if it _had_ then its power would have looked like that: aimless destruction eating at the space around it, death without purpose.

"You saved my life. Thank you."

"Please don't thank me. After I couldn't stop that… After I failed to protect you, this was the bare minimum that duty demanded." Zelda did not know how to respond to that, and so she didn't; she just watched as Paya finished prepping the food, tested the batch she was currently cooking, apparently found it satisfactory. Zelda had been aware of the lynel, if only briefly, and tried to imagine what would have happened if Paya had fought it; Paya was strong, far stronger than she had assumed a person could be through training alone, but that beast had been a relic of a bygone age, a threat that the Guardians had been built to defend against. She tried to imagine how her companion would have done against the thing, found she could not, would not allow herself to visualize the details. She closed her eyes against the thought, and as she did Paya said, "Your Grace, may I ask you a question?"

Two layers too deep; she had been able to deal with this for a while, but she was too tired to try now. "Paya. If we are going to travel together, I can't… have you addressing me this way." She watched Paya's face; instead of hurt, the other woman was confused. Good enough. "I'm grateful to you, more than I can express, but whatever I was before, I am not that person now. I know how you think of me," and Paya flinched here, and Zelda thought that meant she had hit home, "but I do not recall that person and _you_ are the one I'm traveling with. You're not a servant to me, you're a confidant. A friend, I hope. But if we're going to travel together, if we're going to share in the work together and protect each other and teach each other, _please_ … my name might be Zelda, but with you, even if it's only when we're alone, I am not a princess. Not to you."

Paya did not respond immediately; she adjusted the fabric of her sleeves, retying knots as she thought. Then, after a long time, in a voice barely loud enough to be heard: "Regardless of how we treat each other, or what relationship you or I might wish to have, that does not change who you are. It does not change our stations."

It did not hurt as much as she thought it would when she moved. She crawled the few short feet over to Paya, drew her legs up under her to be seated in a position not unlike her companion's, and took one of Paya's hands in both of hers. Paya blushed furiously, like a switch being flipped, and Zelda was sorry to embarrass her but she needed to make this point. She leaned in. "What do you _want_ to call me? No, do not answer right away. Think on it, and seriously; I am not asking you what duty tells you that you should call me. I am asking what you _want_ to call me, in your heart of hearts, and what you would call me if you wanted there to be no barriers between us." She did not know why she thought this was so important, but she did; in trying to explore this, she found a need to articulate it. "We have traveled together, eaten together, fought together, and protected each other. You held my life in your hands and carried me to safety. I would fight for you too, Paya. You cannot be a servant to me. Knowing that, knowing that I want us to be equals with each other… what do you wish to call me?"

Paya looked at her, then, _really_ looked at her, and her regard was so frank and open that Zelda did not know how to interpret it, felt Paya's hand like a frightened bird that might try to take wing. She did not look away, though; she had asked for this vulnerability and would not shy from it.

Finally, after a very long time, with a voice that teetered on the edge of pain, "I… would call you Zelda."

She allowed herself a smile. "Then do. Please. And never seek permission for a question."

The two of them prepped their own bowls of hot pepper stir fry and sat on opposite sides of the fire for warmth. Paya had spent the time thinking, quiet, and Zelda did not want to push her more than she'd already been pushed. Discomfort could lead to resentment, if she wasn't mindful.

Zelda was still blowing on her own meal, trying to cool it, when Paya finally said, "What happened back there?"

"Which part?"

"A-all of it, I suppose. From when you stood at the gate. Your eyes turned golden and then… and then everything got very hard to understand."

"Well." She took a bite of stir fry, found it delectable, chewed as she thought, swallowed. "I suppose I might as well start at—oh this is _so spicy_ —I should tell you about the memory."

She did; she described it in every detail, the walk down from the mountain and the conversation with the Champions and Mipha's words that had unlocked her power, how she remembered these people and had the sense that they were important but could not recall anything of them outside of that memory. Paya had been present when she had described her dreams of Hylia to Impa, so she transitioned smoothly into that, into the things she had learned about both of her sources of power and the reaction that the Calamity had to each. She described the Blight, about its attack on her and its attempt to wrest her life and power away, and how with the goddess's strength she had shattered it. She talked about how the goddess would not be speaking to her again. Before she realized she was doing it she talked about being afraid.

By the time she was done the stir fry was gone and the mushroom congee was ready. Zelda filled both their bowls, no longer hungry but knowing she needed the food. The stir fry had helped warm her, and from the first bite of the congee she could feel strength returning to her; Paya had a very good sense of what food would best serve a given need.

"What do you want to do now?" Zelda looked up at Paya's question, but did not immediately answer as she was chewing. "Shall we return to Kakariko Village? Grandmother did say that we should see her again once you had recovered one of your memories; I do not know if we can reach the road without crossing the storm, though I'm sure we could teleport."

"Mm." She swallowed. "I think… I want to go up the mountain."

It took a visible effort for Paya to say, "Why?"

"This place is important." That was not the half of it, and both knew that now; whatever was at the top of Mount Lanayru was the site of her last failure to unlock her power, but it was supposed to have been a triumph. "I know it's not in the album, but I still wish to see it. It's a holy place, I think." Paya nodded in the affirmative. "Hylia said I would not speak with her again, but… if that place is related to her power, then I think it could still help us. Or… or at least, it won't hurt to see."

Paya nodded. "I think that's a good idea." A pause. "Zelda."

They ate the rest of their meal in silence.

* * *

The mountain was clad in a preternatural darkness, the snow falling on it from clouds so thick they obscured the sun even during the day. The effect was fascinating to Zelda, but not so fascinating that she could devote any energy to it. The going was long, and hard, and cold, so cold that it was not even wet. She was thankful for the meals they had eaten before, for the tattered doublet she was wearing. Paya's ability to walk through this cold wearing the same clothes she might wear in the relative warmth of the low-lands was mystifying, lending her a sense of superhuman resilience.

As they ascended Paya taught her how to spot the Ice Lizalfos who waited in the snow, how to watch for the great roaming eyes that followed them like spots of fire. They did not stop to fight; both were tired and wanted badly to reach the summit. Instead they walked around the beasts, their tread so practiced and light that they could not be heard over the wind, and where that was impossible Zelda tossed a bomb toward the monsters. Usually they did not react to it before she detonated the device and sent the Lizalfos flying off the side of the mountain.

Time was soft on the mountain, a fuzzy thing that was made obscure just as the sun was, and neither of them knew for how long they walked though it could not have been more than a few hours. Up and around they went, up and around, and as they ascended Zelda had the sense that they were walking into the past, as if the height of the world, its crown, stood at the very beginning of all time. Years melted away as they walked, and on some level she wondered if she would meet herself coming down a hundred years prior, if each of them would have some warning for the other.

 _Why am I thinking these things? Is that the influence of Hylia, unlocked through my memory?_ It was not a thought she found calming; she felt unmoored, adrift, no longer sure of where or when she was. Only looking at Paya reminded her, allowed her to put one foot in front of the other with confidence.

When they reached a height at which enormous crystals—whether genuine crystal or ice formations Zelda could not tell—began to jut out the side of the mountain, Paya said back to her, "I think we're almost there." They spoke quietly, even though the wind threatened to deafen them; it seemed wrong to raise one's voice on the mountain, though neither would have said so if they hadn't been climbing it.

The path grew more level, the walking easier, and when Zelda looked to the sky the cloud cover was gone. The sun had gone down and the stars were out. It was a beautiful sight; somehow the stars looked different here than anywhere else she'd been, even compared to the peak of Mount Hylia on the Great Plateau. She felt like she was looking into the past again, but did not feel unmoored; her feet were planted, and she was sure of herself, and looking up at the stars brought her a sense of peace. The past remained and would guide them, if they knew to follow.

Then the present asserted itself.

In her reverie, Zelda had fallen behind. Paya was some distance ahead of her, was the first to round the corner to the shrine. When she did she gasped aloud, covered her mouth with her hands and staggered backward before falling into a sitting position, still pushing herself away with her feet. She made a high-pitched, distressed sound, like a child seeing something new and terrible.

 _It is not physical danger_ , Zelda told herself, though now she was sprinting to catch up. _If it was a physical danger, Paya would call out to me, would be in a defensive position. It's not a physical danger. It's_ — She rounded the corner and turned to the shrine and all thought, all perspective, all meaning was blasted from her mind, snow swept away by wind.

The dragon was beautiful; no other word so perfectly matched her immediate impression of it. Its serpentine body was hundreds of feet long, coiled upon and around the mountain's peak, sinuously weaving back and forth like an enormous river made of scales that shone like polished mirrors. Its head was the size of a small house, the scales of its face sweeping back and transitioning into a crystalline crest that gave the impression of carefully cultivated matrices of ice. Its sides did not move as it breathed, but great plumes of condensation issued from its nostrils, geysers of glittering ice crystals that spun through the air, dancing and catching light like stars.

It groaned, and the sound was deep and enormous, borne of a diaphragm that would shake the firmament with its strength… but it had no strength. In truth it had no beauty, either, for its beauty was marred beyond recognition by the corruption that had spread over it.

She had never seen the Malice in person but she knew it by sight, the congealed form of hatred that stuck to the dragon's skin like pulsating, breathing tumors. Four—or five, or six, or more—pools stood on the dragon's body, reaching down into its scales, into its _flesh_ with tendrils the color of shadow and sickness, turning its natural coloring to something else. Out of each of these masses rose stalks, almost like mushrooms except that instead of caps they were crowned by great golden eyes that glowed with an unnamed power, staring out into the world to lend perspective to a force that would see it all ruined. One of those masses grew out of the dragon's head and there was the greatest of all the eyes, an eye so large that it nearly eclipsed the head itself, and as that eye blinked the dragon groaned again, low and plaintive and with the same tones as before. Its hands reached out for nothing, its talons dull and yielding and dark and without aim.

"This… this is profanity." Her sense of the sacred had been sharpened by her meetings with Hylia, but before this moment she had not known what the word _profane_ meant. Even the Blight attacking her within her own thoughts was not like this; at least that had only been a crime against herself. "This… to do something like this, to such a spirit, it…" She walked forward before she realized she was doing it, stepped past Paya.

Paya's hand flashed and grabbed hold of hers. When their eyes met Paya shook her head furiously, never taking her other hand away from her mouth as if she was afraid that she would scream. She could not speak the words, but the plea was plain in her eyes: _do not go over there. Whatever happened to the dragon can happen to you, too. The Malice wants you and it is here._

"I have to help it, Paya," she said, and pulled her hand free. That she was strong enough to do so surprised her, surprised them both. "I will be careful, I promise, but… I will also do what is required of me." Tears welled up in Paya's eyes and she shook her head again and Zelda walked to the dragon.

Flashes of green and brown danced in front of her as she walked toward it and she willed herself calm, forced herself to take in the rest of the scene. The dragon was at rest on the face of the mountain above the Spring of Wisdom, which was built around a statue of Hylia. Its head rested next to the statue, its rheumy eyes rolling between the sky and the statue's face as it let out another low, plaintive sound.

Below the dragon's pain, below the wind, below the sound of the Malice bubbling as it ate away at the air and fed knowledge to an evil power far away, she heard the jingling of many bells.

Flashes of green and brown in the spring, along the length of the dragon between the masses of corruption. Something was there, but she did not know what, could not see. It was just on the edge of her perception.

"I have to see," she told herself. "I have to know what this is, have to know everything that I can. I must. I _must_." She turned her eyes inward, into that space within her thoughts where the goddess had embraced her. There was a light there, a single point. If she fanned it then it would grow into a flame, great and terrible and an affront to the Calamity. She did not need that, not yet. She took only part of it, the barest sliver, lifted it up out of the space inside of her, willed it behind her eyes. She could feel it filling her thoughts, filling her awareness, infusing her with a deep and fundamental knowing.

She opened her eyes. Stopped, again, in her tracks.

Little creatures— _forest spirits,_ she immediately thought—were all over the spring, on the stone and the water and the dragon itself between the patches of Malice. They were a little shorter than waist-high, their bodies having the appearance of knots of wood with protrusions shaped like arms and legs. On the front of their bodies were affixed leaves of green and red and brown, with holes cut into them to give the impression of eyes and mouths. The leaves, nearly as large as their bodies for many of the spirits, lent them a sense of childlike enthusiasm. Despite the horror that they were dancing around, despite her own fears, she could not help finding them very cute.

They were singing. How had she not heard their singing before? They sang in children's voices as they danced, waving flowers and leaves around in their hands, and the tune they sang was wandering and spritely and fast and harmonious, calling to mind boughs swaying in the wind. When they sang there was light, light the color of grass and healthy summer leaves, and this light enveloped the Malice, making the great eyes blink against the radiance.

One of them was dancing and singing in front of the statue of the goddess, whirling about with abandon, its legs so stubby that it had to rotate its entire body to take steps. This one she approached. It did not notice her, too absorbed in the song. She stood watching it for what felt like a very long time. The dragon sighed again.

"Excuse me," she said, and the spirit stopped instantly, whirling on her and staring up at her with a leaf-face that looked sad and happy at the same time, like a child's drawing. "What are you doing?"

"You can see me?" She was about to answer when it began to hop back and forth between its little leg stubs. "You can see me!" It turned back to the dragon, back to the crowd of its fellows, and shouted, "Hey, everybody! Somebody can see us!"

The dancing and the singing stopped and the light winked out as all the dozens of forest spirits turned to look at her with eyes that weren't eyes. There was a long moment of regard between them where she felt the pressure of their attention and wondered if she had made a terrible mistake—and then they all descended from their places, whooping and shouting and laughing, and they all had the voices of children at play, and they were all talking at once.

"You can see us!"

"Nobody's been able to see us in a hundred years!"

"Mr. Hero was the last person who could see us! Do you know Mr. Hero? I bet you know Mr. Hero!"

"You must be friends with Mr. Hero!"

"Wait! You're the one Mr. Hero was with! You're Miss Princess!" "Miss Princess!" "Miss Princess!"

They were a mob gathered in front of her, a tiny sea of faces and voices shouting all at once, delirious in their jubilation, and the force of their laughter and happiness could have swept her away, made her forget why she was here—but looking past them, she saw the dragon, and wrested back control of herself.

"Please," she said, and repeated it until a hush fell over them. "What's happening here?"

The spirits all looked at each other, and some silent communion took place before the first that she had spoken to turned back to her, apparently the designated liaison. "Naydra's sick."

"Naydra is the dragon?" She was not sure that "sick" was the word she would have used.

"Naydra is the guardian spirit of the mountain, and the spring, and all the land nearby!" The crowd nodded together with the sound of bells and rustling leaves. "They've been here for a very long time. They've protected everything and everyone for a very, very, very long time! But then they got sick." It was holding the stem of a plant she didn't recognize; with that stem it gestured at the Malice. "We've been trying to help Naydra get better, because Korok magic is very strong! We can heal the sickness when it's in the ground or the water or the woods, but… something's different. I think Naydra's power is making the sickness stronger."

"That… makes sense." Images of the Blight returned to her, that creeping corruption that sought to usurp her power for itself. "If it's drawing on the vitality of its victim, then it would be much more difficult to dislodge, provided that the spirit is sufficiently powerful. The greater the power corrupted, the more impossible it becomes for the victim to free itself."

"Yeah! That's what Naydra had been saying!"

"Naydra can speak?" She found the idea difficult to parse; what sounds could a mouth like that make?

"Yeah! Of course! Well, maybe not in a way that you can understand, but they can talk to us! When we first came to help them, Naydra tried to tell us what was happening. But even though we were trying to help them, they kept getting sicker and sicker, and then they stopped trying to talk at all. Maybe if more of us were here, but…" The whole crowd looked up at Naydra, and she could feel their frustration and their sadness crackling in the air above them. "Then the earth shook really bad a little while ago, and they got their voice back, but they just keep saying the same thing over and over again."

The dragon groaned, low and loud, once more the same sound as before, and Zelda felt that she could hear the word, or very nearly. The knowledge was on the other side of her understanding; if she had all of her memories back, would she know this language?

"What are they saying?"

"They're trying to call Hylia."

The world crystallized around her as she recalled the sound of her own power, how it had echoed far enough for the Calamity to hear. Wouldn't this spirit have heard too, so much nearer? Wouldn't it have known that its protector, the protector of all things who had charged it with guarding this place, was nearby? _And now it's calling her. Calling me_.

She looked to the dragon, and then to the west, seeing in her mind's eye the castle that stood far away. She looked back to Paya, who did not know what was happening, could neither see nor hear the Koroks. The snowfield was a blasted ruin; Paya had carried her out of it. Could she subject her to that horror again?

Naydra called out, in pain and delirium, and she did not understand the language but she heard her own name in its voice.

She wiped at her face, looked down as a tiny wooden nub pressed gently against her other hand.

"Don't cry, Miss Princess," the Korok said, and it was trying so hard to make her feel better, its voice so earnest and tender that it twisted the inside of her chest into knots. "We know it looks bad, but Korok magic is strong. We haven't healed Naydra yet, but we'll… we'll try really, really hard, OK? Even if it takes a long time, we'll work hard and we'll make them better. So… so don't cry, OK?"

The crowd pressed in around her, petting gently at her legs, promising from every direction that they would make it OK, that everything would be all right.

Naydra called out to her again.

She lifted her face, set her jaw, sniffed, swallowed. "You should all go."

"M-Miss Princess?"

"All of you go. Go somewhere safe. I will tend to Naydra."

A wave of shock passed over them, and for one moment the Koroks were utterly still. "You can heal them?"

"Yes," she said, and nodded. She needed to exude confidence to match their kindness; she needed strength to match the task in front of her. "Yes, I can heal them. I _will_ heal them. But after I do, the thing that made Naydra sick is going to be very angry, so you had better run."

There was another moment where the Koroks shared their silent communion; then they cheered and as a body held aloft their flowers, their stems, their little leaves, and began to float into the air. Their laughter was like rain falling on the mountainside. The spokesperson waved its free hand happily at her, as if it needed to catch her attention again after she had looked away for about a second. "Miss Princess!" She nodded to it. "We're going to go back to the Lost Woods! It's, um… that way!" It pointed in the general direction of the northwest. "Next to the big fiery mountain! You should come visit us, OK? Look for the big tree! Promise you'll come visit us, OK?"

"I promise," she said, both for the Koroks and because she wanted to see where these happy spirits made their homes so deeply that it bordered on a physical need.

They cheered as a body, waved to her as they ascended, shouted "Bye, Miss Princess!" "Come visit us soon!" "Bye!" "Bye, bye! Bye!"

They rose like birds on the wing and swept away as a laughing cloud at even greater speed. In moments they were gone, distant, safe.

The wind howled, and Naydra called out to her.

"Paya," she called over the wind, turned back to her companion. Paya had gotten to her feet, which was good. "I'm going to fix this. I need you to be ready to run, to use the paraglider if we have to." _I should get a second one of those made_. "Will you be ready?"

In her secret heart she did not have enough faith in Paya; but Paya had faith in her, enough to nod, to begin to stretch, to wait with expectant eyes and absolute surety in the rightness of what Zelda was doing. That faith, faith in Zelda's righteousness weighed against a death too terrible to comprehend with the senses of the body, was like a physical force. Zelda felt it pushing at her back as she turned her attention back to Naydra.

The Malice hissed as the dragon breathed, and she felt calm. Calmer than she'd been in a long time.

She reached down, down within herself, and the golden power was there. She did not take a sliver, this time; the whole thing was in her hands, she breathed life into it until it was a furnace, until the sound filled the physical air and light shone from her like the sun. She opened her eyes and saw the aura of her power all around her, saw that Naydra's head had lifted, that the dragon's eyes were focused on her, in hope and pain and fear and love. The power built, and built, and built, built until it was barely contained in her skin, until the wind was still and only the ringing of her strength could be heard.

 _I wonder if you can see this_ , she thought at the Calamity at the heart of the kingdom. Then she let go, and the power roared free of her, and the world was filled with light.

* * *

The Calamity staggered with a bellow, and the Hero was upon it with flashing steel, and its fury and its pain were incalculable. It did see; it also _felt_ , and that feeling was far more terrible.

* * *

The light obliterated the Malice, evaporating it like water, dissolving even the smoke that it left behind. The eyes all turned to look at her with expressions of cold, blank hatred, and then were gone, swept into nothing.

Its influence on Naydra's body disappeared in an instant, a shattering of a carapace of darkness, and the color of ice and rain radiated out from inside of them. Naydra roared, and she did not know the language but she knew that it was a sound of relief, of power restored, of warning, of exultation.

The dragon's body rose from the mountainside all at once, taking to the air as if it were moving through water. They circled around the mountain once, bellowing, as Zelda looked up in wonder. She remembered herself, then, and ran toward Paya. The two of them prepared to try to outrun death as the beast in the castle unleashed its hatred at them and a burning comet streaked from the heart of the land.

They had no real plan, save to run; when a shadow fell over them as they ran they both looked up. The sight struck still both of them.

Talons the size of horses closed gently around them, lifting them up into the air. The touch was warm, even though the air around them was freezing, even though they should have been frozen themselves. Zelda looked to Paya and she was laughing, now far past her fears, and Zelda laughed too as the dragon carried them away from the mountain. They swept down into the snowfield, and in their passing the storm abated, ripped apart by purifying cold, and the air was still and quiet.

Naydra carried them above the road named for the mountain, and the beasts on that road scrambled and hid from their passage. The wind was whipped into a frenzy, but the world was calm. The dragon was calm.

The Calamity's fury struck the mountain on the side opposite the shrine, and the mountain shook.

Naydra bellowed, a high and musical sound, and Zelda knew that it called her name.


	9. Ceremony and Light

As the ceremony went on she could feel it getting away from her.

No, that was wrong; it was out of her hands from the beginning, like a serpent that she had grabbed by the wrong place and was only turning around and biting her because she had mishandled it. She looked at the Hylian who carried the sword—at _Link_ —at _the hero_ without looking away, trying to keep her attention focused as was proper, but her eyes darted to the gathered champions. She could see their discomfort, their disappointment, and these were piled on top of hers. Not exactly a proper follow-up to the jubilation and comradery that they had all been expressing at having their photograph taken together, but maybe that could be reclaimed, in time. Not now.

Link never looked up; his eyes were downcast, his posture studied and perfect as if he had been practicing it in anticipation of this event. Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn't _had_ to; maybe it was like the sword, that he was blessed with perfect piety and duty the same way he had been blessed with incredible power.

 _That's not fair_ , she said to herself. _You don't know what he's had to do._

 _I know what he is now_. She knew that he was what she was not, and looking down at him she saw that he was not even sweating, did not betray the merest tremble as he stayed perfectly still in his kneeling position. Her own hand wavered, drifting as a body will when it is made to hold still, and she had to periodically drop it to let her nerves settle before raising it again. This speech was long, but she knew it had to be; apparently it was something like the speech that had been spoken over the hero ten millennia ago, in an age of wonders. The length was not the problem. Her weakness was. Her weakness was ever the only problem.

 _How much like the hero of the past is he? Has he been reborn, carrying lives of experience and strength inside of him? How nice that must be; how simple._

She felt her posture begin to slip, straightened her spine as she came to the end. "That each of us might know the peace carried on the backs of the courageous, that our world might bathe in the light of Hylia, and that the kingdom of Hyrule may prosper under your protection, lift your blade. Lend us your strength, for so long as you are needed." Finally, finally, she lowered her hand, brushing her fingertips against his brow. "Rise."

He rose slowly, his every motion speaking to the control and mastery he had of his own body. When he stood straight he looked at her, and they were of identical height; if he had stood any closer to her it would have been too intimate, too invasive even for her designated protector, but he observed protocol perfectly. He did not speak, and she felt the weight of his eyes on her, and somehow it was even worse than the other Champions; they betrayed their boredom, their empathetic awkwardness, even as they approached now. Link betrayed nothing at all, by expression or by posture or by the language of his body. Would he hold his opinion of her so doggedly to his breast? What were they?

She suspected she knew.

"Ah, thanks for humoring me there, Princess." Daruk adjusted his sash's knot; he did that when he was nervous, not wanting to offend. "That was… definitely everything I asked for."

"It was positively _funereal_." The gathered champions (save Link) flinched from Revali's words, but Zelda found them comforting, in an odd way; now that it was out in the open, she did not need to worry about what Revali was thinking. Not that knowing kept the color out of her face nor kept the shame from suddenly becoming sharper and more distinct, but at least now she did not wonder. "I suppose I can't hold it against you, given the… _material_ you have to work with," and he motioned in Link's direction with one wing, and the hero did not deign to react even to that direct insult, "but still, I don't—"

" _That's enough_." Urbosa's tone was that of a matriarch used to speaking to people who needed instruction. But if she had expected Revali to be cowed by her then her expectations were instantly betrayed; he wheeled on her, eyes narrowed and chest out, and he looked perceptibly _larger_ as his feathers very slightly stood on end. Regardless, the inherent challenge in his stance did not seem to faze her; Urbosa actually grinned, and it was not a grin of amusement.

"I would like to formally apologize." Now Mipha's turn to draw their attention. She placed one hand against her chest, inclined her head toward Zelda. "Forgive my inattentiveness, Princess. I find myself… exhausted by the events of the day."

A lifeline, and she hated herself because she resented it. After a moment of self-pity at how easily Mipha kept to decorum compared to her, how she had not been the one to quell the rising tension of her Champions, she bowed her head in return. "There is no need for apology; the ceremony was for the hero more than anyone else, and I think we can agree that Link has been appropriately attentive." Her attempt at humor registered, and Daruk's tension drained out of him, a little, as he chuckled. Link looked at her, but still he said nothing.

"The ceremony may have been for the hero, but we are no less your Champions." Urbosa stepped away from Revali, who visibly calmed as he was given his own space. "All of this is well and good—though Hylian ceremony is not quite like those of the Gerudo." _Or the Gorons, or the Zora, or the Rito_ , she did not have to say. "We understand, each of us, our tasks. We also understand that all of this revolves around you, Princess." She stood in thought for a moment, staring off into space, before nodding to herself. Then she smiled at Zelda, and this smile was both affectionate and apologetic. Then she kneeled.

It took every fiber of her not to ask Urbosa to get up, not to recoil at what she was doing. Urbosa was the closest thing she'd had to a mother for nearly a decade; seeing her kneel was anathema.

"I've already said my oaths to Hyrule," Urbosa said, "and we've all sworn to do battle with Ganon and free this land. So now I'm making a different oath: to you, the heart of the Champions. Do not mistake me; this is more than fealty. This is an oath to the task, to all of us, and to the work we will do together. I will fight Ganon."

Unbelievably, Revali knelt next to Urbosa, and there was no arrogance or anger in him, everything forgotten, dropped on the ground in favor of something that went deeper than that. Pride? Faith? Surety in his duty? It was like what Urbosa had, and whatever it was Zelda could not understand because she did not share in it.

"I will lay down my life for Hyrule, and for you." Daruk knelt where he stood, and there was no levity in him. "More than that, more than each of these, I will give myself totally over to the cause. I am not the Chief of the Gerudo; I am a Champion." Mipha, who had set aside so much of the symbols of her status among her own people so that she might wear the Champion's sash, knelt next to Daruk. "I will not fail."

"I will not fail," said Revali, and it was a cry against the dark, against a world that would see him fall.

"I will not fail," said Daruk, and it was the promise of a brother, a son, a father, who understood himself only in the context of how he could help those around him.

"I will not fail," Mipha said, and there was something there Zelda did not understand, some deep-running sorrow that she could not touch, and she thought of Sidon, the little prince.

There was a gap between Urbosa and Mipha; into this gap Link stepped, his eyes trained carefully on her face. He bent the knee to her, said nothing; his oaths were clear in every part of him. Of course he wouldn't fail; the sword on his back was his oath, his testament, and his glory. Finally he lowered his eyes, finally he released her from the weight of his judgment, and still he left her with no understanding. The other champions bore their hearts with every word, but his remained closed to her.

And then:

"I will not fail." Quiet, hesitant. But there.

She turned away from them, from her Champions who would make war with evil on her behalf, and looked to the castle in the distance. Could her father see her from there, she wondered? Was he looking even now? Was he watching, as she was surrounded by the courageous, who were so much more than she was even as they lifted her up?

She wished very badly that her mother was there. She did not find her words for a long time.

* * *

She gasped, pulled back to the world as if waking from a dream, the past fading from her vision like parchment set upon flame. It had been there a moment ago, she had been living it as vividly as she was living now, could feel the act of making choices and the possibilities that stretched out of individual moments, and for one second she swooned because it felt like she could have changed the past.

Paya's hand closed firmly around her elbow, steadying her, and she leaned gratefully on her companion. "Wait." She said this because she was still unsure, because awareness was coming back in spurts, because something was still changing inside of her. Paya waited as bidden; she was good at waiting.

Zelda took a deep breath through her nose and held it. That sense of moving through time like a room was still with her, as if she could step sideways into some unnamed angle and emerge in the same place twenty years ago, or a hundred, or a thousand, and find it no more difficult. This was not true; she was not one of the gods. _But you carry one's power, her strength is yours and how far does Hylia's dominion reach_? She laid her free hand on the one holding her elbow and squeezed Paya's fingers, anchoring herself.

It passed, and the world grew right-sided and concrete. She was no longer dreaming… save that something was different, deep down on the very floor of her awareness. She could not have said what it was, knowing only that it was there.

"I think I resented him, too," Zelda said, and she turned her attention to the place where the Champions had kneeled, one hundred years ago. "He was so… powerful. So righteous. I thought that quality was something inborn, that it had been granted to him by the gods without the pains that they had visited on me." She swallowed. "All the Champions were so… _strong_ , and good. I remember being close to each of them, in their way, and how much it shamed me to disappoint them. But I only thought this thing of Link, because he carried the sword that sealed the darkness."

"You were under a very great deal of pressure," Paya said, trying to be gentle, testing Zelda's balance.

"I still am. That doesn't… it's not a good excuse for that…" She stopped, thought. She was still that person from one hundred years ago, wasn't she? She had these small memories, but not the attendant knowledge and experiences that informed them. Was this new life like a resetting of herself, an absolution of her past and her sins and her failures? She could feel herself from a hundred years ago as truly as she felt _herself_ ; all she had to do was remember and it was like stepping back into that other life. Every time she remembered some new thing she changed, partially because the goddess's power kept growing inside of her and partially because the experience of being _herself_ also changed her, the way she saw herself and her relationship with the world around her.

"Zelda." Paya's eyes were soft with concern. "You look lost. I-I want you to know you can talk to me. Even… even if I don't understand what you're experiencing, talking will help! Or… it might, anyway."

She released the pressure on Paya's fingers and Paya let go of her elbow so she stood under her own power. For one moment, very briefly, she wondered if perhaps she could or even should keep this to herself; but no, she had asked too much of Paya and Paya had given too much of herself for Zelda to think that it was right to keep anything from her.

"Every time I remember something new," she said, "I feel as if I am losing some part of myself. It is as if there are three women inside of me: _me_ , the person you are talking to now, who woke up without her memories; the Princess Zelda, who one hundred years ago failed in her battle with the Calamity and loved the hero, even though she hated him too; and a third person, _ancient_ , who is at one with the power of the goddess." An idea flitted through her mind like a cinder on the wind, and it was so bright and shining that she could not divorce herself from it, not until it was spoken and out in the air. "I… I think I am the first person. But… I also think that, perhaps the more I remember, the more the other two begin to rise."

Her hands were shaking. She balled them into fists, but that didn't help, now her arms were trembling, and she could feel the world slipping away under her.

"I think this is what is called an existential crisis. Isn't that funny?" It was not funny; she knew that her voice communicated that it was not funny, that she was on the edge of panicking, and she could see how nervous and helpless she was making Paya feel but now the cinder was out, and it needed more air, more breath, more fuel. She couldn't stop. "It feels as if, if I continue on my quest and remember more and more, the Princess and the Goddess will continue to grow… and I may disappear."

Paya's hands were shaking worse than hers were, but still she managed to take both of Zelda's in hers, to coax the fists open and press their hands together. She couldn't look at Zelda, was shaking from a kind of nervousness utterly apart from the kind she carried with her into and after battle, but her grip was very strong.

"I will help," Paya said, insistent even as her voice quavered. "N-no matter what happens. I'll anchor you, so… so no matter how much you remember, or how st-strong these other thoughts are, you won't disappear." She fought, visibly, to raise her eyes enough to meet Zelda's, and Zelda began to understand something she had not understood before. "I will keep you here. We'll keep helping each other, for as long as it takes. I promise."

She embraced Paya, in warmth and thanks and sorrow, and the other woman was stiff in her arms but that was all right. She let go quickly, and Paya murmured something inaudible while backing up. She had hurt her again; she would hurt her more before this journey was through. More sorrow.

Fears piled on top of each other, a bundle of snakes that writhed and dripped venom into common pools, giving rise to new fears, new shapes for old ones, and a sickness of the heart that she did not know if she could deal with. She hadn't been afraid for herself twenty minutes ago, hadn't been afraid for her _identity_ and the sense of freedom that had come with it. Should she fear that change? Didn't every person change as they grew and learned and loved, and it was normal and safe and even a happy thing to change? Every step on the path was leading her to some new memory, an increasing potential for losing herself, and that possibility was ice in her stomach.

They were so close to Hyrule Castle that when the Calamity roared, they felt the earth quake. The blue light erupted from the castle's keep, so bright that it threw the overgrown clearing into stark relief, and both of them looked toward it in time to hear the high, clear notes of an ancient voice singing a song they could not recognize.

 _He is still fighting. Link is still fighting. While I am afraid, while I worry over what will happen to me, he continues the battle he joined one hundred years ago on my behalf. I am alive and enjoy this freedom because he gave himself to a war that is more terrible than the one I waged._

She looked over at Paya, saw tears running down the other woman's face. It was something in the music, in the voice, that spoke to a part of them so deep it bordered on the primal. It communicated in so few notes the nature of the war being waged, the hero struggling forever against the dark.

The light faded, and the singing with it.

"I think," Zelda said, "that we need to put ourselves to something… concrete. Not memories or the stuff of gods and wars and quests. We need something that we can work on and finish. Together?"

Paya blushed again and nodded, turned her eyes to the south, and listened. "There is a Guardian immediately to the south of us. I think it's the same one that we avoided on our way here. It isn't aware us, but it's tending toward this direction. Its path may bring it near enough to detect us in the next few minutes."

"Do you think that a mobile Guardian would be more likely to survive attempts to dissect it?"

Paya made a face, with effort, trying to seem more casual and familiar than she felt, managing to communicate that she liked neither the idea of confronting a Guardian nor the expression of that feeling. "I'm not an expert, but I don't see why it would be."

"Hmmm." It was true that the Malice infected each of the Guardians and actually had a mildly corrosive effect; this was the simplest explanation for why the targeting systems for their weapons were slower than records from a hundred years ago seemed to indicate. Still, if they were mobile, that meant that they had experienced less corrosion, for one reason or another, than their immobile peers. "I think it's worth a shot."

* * *

The Guardian's many legs propelled it along the ground, low but aloft, easily adjusting to sudden shifts in terrain. The ease with which it hoisted itself over a stray boulder, the automatic adjustment of its central body so that it remained upright and properly oriented, was a marvel of engineering so sublime that simply watching it could not engender appreciation for it. Few were those living who would think much of it; fewer still those who would know the fineness of its craftsmanship, the singular skill of its construction. More, far more, would appreciate the menace of its wide, burning eye as it scanned the environment.

Its sensors reached no further than its immobilized counterparts, but that reach was far indeed. It detected movement, heat, _life_ as it passed near a small copse that surrounded the remains of a courtyard. Instantly it turned its eye in that direction, seeking visual confirmation, and the sound of its clawed appendages digging into the dirt was softer than one might expect, no more than stones hitting the grass.

A few meters behind the tree line, a particular trunk fell with a burst of light, an explosion. The Guardian sprinted, seeking a target, and a chime like an enormous bell rung out. The Guardian was fast, covering hundreds of meters with a speed greater than a horse could hope to match, but it was also _observant_ , registering and recording the repeated impacts of weapons that reverberated similarly to the chime that had rung out a moment before. Then there was another explosion, though this time no trees fell.

"Now!"

A Hylian voice, and a flash of Hylian silhouette, and its targeting systems painted that body with red light. Its capacitor was fully charged, waiting for confirmation of targeting lock, and then there was another chime, somewhat louder than before.

A fallen tree trunk soared out of the copse like a spear hurled by a god. The Guardian's targeting line was broken, and it had time to interpret that it was under attack just before the projectile smashed into its eye.

The log exploded on impact, shivering to pieces in a cloud of splinters and dust, and the Guardian was rocked backward by the force of the blow. Its legs collapsed, body crashing to the ground as the shock to its primary sensor sent its systems into a short reboot sequence.

Two figures ran out of the wood, one holding a sword made of blue light, the other a bow of darkened wood.

* * *

"You're stronger than I am," Zelda had said. "You have to be the one to handle this part."

"I don't know if that's true anymore!" Her reply had been truthful, but not by much; the blessings of the goddess had begun to tell in the princess's body, and the blessings of the Great Fairy had armored her against harm, but there were limits to which Paya had not been pushed.

"We have to assume it is until proven otherwise. You're better suited for _either_ task, so it makes sense that you would do the more important one."

"But what if its weapon fires at you? I don't even know how deep to try to cut, or how wide to make the opening, or anything!"

"I'm better protected, thanks to Cotera, and the effective firing angle is narrow enough that I think we can avoid it. And there's nothing to know! The armor is two inches thick, uniformly, and you will have another two inches of clearance before reaching any vital components."

"That's not very much room for error!"

"I have absolute faith in your abilities. If you stab into it at the right angle, especially if you can find a flaw or damaged spot, you should be able to pierce it with just the strength of your arm. Then you can saw at it to make an opening, about two feet wide—"

" _Saw_ at it? That will ruin the blade!"

"It's a blade of light, it doesn't need sharpening like a steel one does!"

"It still experiences physical strain, because the emitter is the fulcrum point for force applied against the blade! If we put it under too much stress it could be damaged!" She had felt a small thrill of pleasure at how this objection took Zelda aback; she didn't know as much about ancient technology as Auntie Purah, but at least she knew enough for _this_.

That pleasure had withered at the set of Zelda's mouth and the lowering of her eyebrows as she weighed the possibilities. "That's just a risk we're going to have to take."

So here they were, now. Zelda was dressed in the Hylian-style tunic, since it provided better protection, and holding a sheikah-made bow that granted greater accuracy if held by a steady hand. The initial impact of the Stasis-propelled tree had stunned the Guardian long enough to approach it, and now each time it began to recover Zelda put an arrow in its eye, making it collapse again. Zelda had bought every arrow in Kakariko, and the fletcher had made a very great deal more than usual in hopes that the Princess would requisition (not purchase but _requisition_ ) more; if she wanted to, Zelda could probably lock down the Guardian for hours with being interrupted.

Paya hoisted herself onto the Guardian's back, setting her feet just below the segmentation between the Guardian's body and what she thought of as its head. It still twitched as it recovered, rotating by small degrees, but hopefully it wouldn't be too much to work through. That wasn't the real problem.

The _real_ problem was the armor itself. Not the thickness of it, or the hardness of it, or the particular ways it might be able to disperse kinetic or thermal energy; the problem was that, on top of all of these things, it was also smooth and angled to turn away blows of force. If she wanted to pierce it without the blade skidding all over the place then she was going to need to find a flaw. She _could_ make one herself, one good slash would probably open a divot in it large enough to steady the tip of the blade, but she wanted to be able to use a deeper crevice, if there was one.

She was lucky: after a few seconds scanning she found a missing chunk of armor, what was very nearly a pit where it looked like a spear may have struck it in some past battle. Whatever had wielded that weapon was stronger than a person; she wondered if she was looking at a wound that dated from before the Calamity's prior sealing, back in the truly old war.

She placed the tip of the blade against the crack in the armor, gripped the handle with her left hand to steady it while placing her right against the pommel, and _shoved_.

There was a crack like pottery breaking, and the blade sank in an inch. To check if it would come free, she pulled, and when the blade retracted without resistance she shoved again, slightly harder.

Another crack, and now there was no more resistance as the blade broke cleanly through the outer layer of armor.

"How's it going back there?" The Guardian shifted, its legs beginning to brace themselves against the ground, and then Paya heard the impact of another arrow hitting its eye.

"I think I'm through the armor!"

"Good! Try to be careful; you only have that much more clearance before you reach the internal components."

She did not need to be told again. Carefully, carefully she withdrew the blade, and found that it easily slid out, as if it grew thinner—or was already infinitely thin? Looking at the blade edge-on made her eyes hurt, so she was not absolutely sure. Still.

"OK, Paya. Relax. If you have two inches of clearance and the armor is two inches thick, then you can allow yourself three and a half inches per stroke. That… shouldn't be too hard." Even trying to pep herself up, she was not very convincing. Still, she began to saw in short, quick, powerful motions, placing as much pressure as she could on each thrust or draw.

The smell it made was interesting; definitely burning, but not burning of a kind she had smelled before, like meat or vegetables or overdone pottery. Black flakes drifted down as she sawed, ashes from the armor being obliterated by the knife, and she wondered if they would be toxic to inhale. Probably. Best not to breathe it in, regardless. Though the armor, in its destruction, could be producing vapors that were just as dangerous.

The blade was designed in such a way that heat and kinetic energies were shunted away at all costs. That is why Paya did not feel the emitter grow hot as she sawed a roughly triangular opening, did not experience some sense of heat or warning as the blade's mount began to hiss. It cut easily enough through the armor, and she was going at speed; that was all that mattered. The opening would be about two feet wide on each side, which _should_ be enough for Zelda to reach inside of it and see what she needed to see.

Later, she would decide that she had been too focused on the act of sawing, that the focus required to use such small, even strokes from a strange position for an extended period of time compromised her ability to notice the state of her weapon. She never said such a thing to Zelda because she knew Zelda would want to absolve her and one should not be absolved of negligence: it was why she did not realize that the sword, which was very much meant for slashing rather than chopping and most _definitely_ not for sawing, was at its breaking point as she came around to the end of the last side. It was why she was so surprised when it burst in her hands.

* * *

"Zelda!"

She took a moment; the reboot sentence completed, and the light in the Guardian's eye flickered off and on for half a second before it began to move again. She loosed her arrow, waited for the impact, exhaled as the life went out of the machine again.

"Yes?"

"The blade shattered!"

She fought down a groan. "When you say 'shattered,' what do you mean?"

"The handle burst, the emitter seems to have exploded, and every component I can see is smoking!" In spite of her own anxieties, Zelda more sharply felt Paya's; she had been right, and she sounded like in reward for being right she had broken the world. Paya was trying very hard not to panic.

"Did you finish?"

"It's… difficult to tell. There's a lot of smoke!"

Another twitch, another arrow, another impact. "Switch places with me!"

They moved quickly, dashing past each other so that Zelda did not hear the apology that she knew Paya was trying to get out as she took the bow from Zelda's hand. She clambered up the side of the Guardian opposite its eye, banging her knee heavily on one of its legs as she hoisted herself up. Paya released an arrow with absolute precision; Zelda knew that she would continue to do so until she ran out of arrows, and so put it out of her mind.

Paya's summary of the Guardian Blade's condition had been accurate, in that there was essentially nothing left of it and it was completely beyond repair. Fine. Tend to that later. Instead she turned to the opening that Paya had been working on, tracing from the point of initial incision and outlining a sort of rounded triangle, until it summarily ended in a scorch mark that was… perhaps connected, perhaps not. The margin was too narrow for her to say one way or the other.

It was not the fact of breaking the armor that was the real problem in this context, or even the loss of the weapon; what Zelda was _afraid_ of was the possibility that the discharge had damage the interior components of the Guardian. They could test its condition, perhaps, by letting it recover long enough to try to attack them.

"Well, we'll return to that idea later," she said to herself, taking out the narrow sheikah short sword that Paya had lent to her. "Let's see… if the energy of the blade is able to cut through the armor's material, then it's possible that the sudden flare of it may have compromised its structural integrity, at least at the point of exposure…" Stooping against the Guardian, putting her hand against it as if to steady it and keep it from moving, she leaned in close to peer at the place where the blade had almost punched through. Gingerly she placed the tip of the eight-fold blade against the last width of armor, which was blackened and smelled terribly. It _felt_ different enough, from that first point of contact. With the same carefulness, fearful of damaging the blade, (even though it was easily replaced and Paya would definitely blunt it on a rock if Zelda asked her to) she pressed more firmly, trying to cut at it.

Ash fell away from beneath the blade. In that one spot the armor had been reduced to a state not far removed from charcoal. Caution gone, Zelda pulled back and struck hard with the sword, and the armor shifted and groaned as the last connection broke. She pressed the sword in, angled it, and wrenched as hard as she could—and the cut segment of armor fell free, clattering down the side of the Guardian before hitting the grass.

"Zelda?"

"I'm all right, Paya! That was the armor falling away. You got it open!" She hoped the words would be enough to lay Paya's anxieties to rest but did not ask because in that moment she had something she wanted much more desperately to examine. The opening Paya had cut was very nearly a triangular window; she tested its edge, found that it was not hot and that the interior of the Guardian radiated no particular heat, then braced herself against it and leaned in to look inside. "What in the world…"

The exact nature of the machinery that she was looking at escaped her; perhaps Purah could have illuminated the functionality of certain parts, of the piping that fed reservoirs of glowing liquid to various inner mechanisms before draining them back into reservoirs that sat atop carved lumps of blue stone, of the interlacing servos that were hooked into what she assumed were the drive motors for the Guardian's legs, of the vast array of strange machinery that she guessed were its suite of targeting mechanisms and weapon systems, but Purah was not there. She took the Sheikah Slate from her hip and snapped several photographs from multiple angles, swearing that she would discuss the specific elements in excruciating detail, but this was just a delaying tactic on her part. The inside of the Guardian was a treasure trove of information and potential for future learning, but it wasn't what she was really paying attention to; it was what she was looking at so that she could try to ignore the Malice.

The interior of the Guardian was _infested_ with it, the inside of the armored housing stained and acrid with smoke that had accumulated into a film that looked viscous to the touch. Purple fire and arcs of unnaturally colored electricity crackled between components that could not have been meant to support them, and as she watched she knew on a deep, intuitive level that the power of the Calamity was eating away at the inside of it.

She knew that this was wrong, that the Guardian was not functioning as it should, and that she could know more. Her awareness was different now, she could feel the Malice and the power that it was trying to mask as clearly as she could feel the strength of her own limbs. Hylia's power, Hylia's awareness, brought closer to the surface by the power of her memory. It had terrified her only minutes ago but now, here, she needed it with a desperation that was more than physical.

Zelda reached within herself, drawing upon the well of her power. She needed only a sliver, only the tiniest part, a piece so small that the Calamity could not possibly feel it while locked in battle with the hero. In her mind it was only enough to fit on the tip of her fingernail, a point of light that would be lost among stars if held to the sky. This light, this power, she drew up from inside of herself and willed into the space behind her eyes. She felt the knowing spread, the understanding, and looked again into the Guardian's heart.

"There you are," she said.

She could see the rivers of the Guardian's power coursing through it, systems feeding into other systems that fed into more systems, and she saw that there were carefully partitioned redundancies so that damage to smaller parts would not cripple the larger ones. This was why the Guardian was still able to move in spite of the corrosive effect of the Malice, why it could continue to serve the Calamity even as Ganon's strength ate it from the inside. All of the systems were fed by rivers of power (and information, but those two were the same thing, light and legend married in a suspension that was nearly fluid) that flowed from the same source. That source, an orb at the conjunction between the weapon systems and the motor controls, was the heart of the Guardian. It was also where the Malice was nested.

"This energy, this _power_ , is derived from the blue stones that sit in the Guardian's base. I don't know what, but…" She paused, breathed slowly, sighed. "No, that's not true, and I shouldn't lie to myself. These are stones that are aligned with Hylia, that are derived from her element and draw strength from the world according to her design. They're attuned to her. Which means they're attuned to me. Which means the Guardians themselves are, which means… _all_ sheikah technology might be."

The core crackled as she looked at it, as if to threaten her.

She raised her head from the opening. "Paya!"

"Yes?" She sounded happier now, but she also heard the urgency in Zelda's voice. "What is it?"

"I'm going to try something, and there's a chance it might go wrong. When I give the signal, I want you to stop shooting the Guardian unless it actively targets you. If I shout, then I want you to forget the Guardian and hold onto me, so I can teleport us out of here. Understand?" She knew Paya understood; she did not wait for the answer. Instead she leaned back into the opening, drawing up more of the power within herself.

The Guardian was so full of Malice that it could have probably spread the infection on its own, but the active portion of it was confined to the core. If she was right, then a properly portioned amount of her power could burn the Malice out of the core, and from there it was possible that the Guardian's systems would spread her power through its body, cleansing it using the same channels that had been used to infect it with the corruption. _If_ she was right, and that was a powerful "if." But then, no, it wasn't. She knew.

She drew on her power, praying that it would not be so much that the Calamity would hear her, willing it silent and still inside of her until she used it. The light flared within her, the world in her head turned golden, but she willed it down, down, under the surface of her skin, and she shifted the pool until all of the power she'd drawn was in her index finger. The power that could be contained in one finger against the Malice seated in the Guardian's core. Surely that was enough.

She reached out to the core, felt the Malice inside of it hiss and try to push back against her. She pressed her fingertip against the smooth surface, and her power was like a buffer between herself and the corruption so that she was aware of it but it could not hurt her; that feeling of being protected by her own strength was, briefly, intoxicating. Zelda held that feeling of herself touching the darkness, wanting to remember how this felt for the future, and then poured her power forward.

The Malice and Hylia's strength whirled within the core, light and dark, two differently colored liquids that refused to mix. Even from a distance and without drawing on more of her power she could feel the conflict between the two energies, how the Malice fought to maintain its own integrity as her power tried to burn it away, and the core rattled in its casing from the force of the conflict. After what seemed too long a time she wondered if perhaps she hadn't put enough into it, if the core did not have the capacity to hold both powers in quantities that would allow one to defeat the other, if the whole thing would explode with her staring at it and then wouldn't she really be testing Cotera's work?

The Malice winked out like a candle being snuffed, and the core was filled with light.

The light spread at speed, blood flowing through a body carried on the beating of a mighty heart, and she saw as her strength burned away the darkness. There was power there, not just in the act but in the feeling, the knowing that she had done so much and could do so much more.

"Paya!" She took several more snapshots, then returned the Sheikah Slate to her waist. "Stop shooting!"

She climbed down slowly, carefully, as the Guardian came back to life. Paya still had the bow drawn taut, kept it trained on the Guardian's face just in case, but Zelda walked over to her slowly, hoping that the leisure of her pace would communicate how little there was to fear. Maybe it did, but that hardly mattered; even when Zelda was standing right next to her, wiping the sweat from her own brow, the tension never left Paya's body. She was in another place, a place that Zelda did not or could not know, where the only thing that mattered was the fulfillment of duty, the only sensation was of the bite of the string against her fingers.

The Guardian rose, its eye blinking into blue life with a low hum. Paya tracked it precisely but would not fire; the targeting system on the Guardians were enough of an early warning sign that, so long as they stayed in front of it, it couldn't be _too_ much of a danger to them.

Its great eye turned to them, and the aperture behind its lens shifted and contracted as it focused on them. The moment stretched out, and Zelda could hear things as clearly as words spoken: the shifting of the motors that drove the Guardian's legs, the servomechanisms constantly adjusting its balance to keep it upright, the gentle creak of the bow as Paya pulled it even tighter. She could feel the quiet beneath the noises. The sun was very warm, out on the field.

The Guardian turned away from them and stepped slowly but surely back toward its previous path, light shining out of the hole they had made in its armor. Its steps were heavier than she had thought, she could feel it in the ground as it moved, and as it scanned the horizon she thought that perhaps it would return to its original purpose. Probably it would keep to its prior patrol path, but she also thought that perhaps it would see manifestations of the Malice—keese, bokoblins, even other Guardians—and act on them in ways that would surprise its targets. She wondered if, without its components being degraded and insulated by the powers of the Calamity, its targeting systems might return to their original efficacy. She hoped so.

When it was out of range of her arrow, Paya slowly lowered the bow and released the tension she had kept it under. Her arms were shaking from the strain of holding it taut for so long, but she didn't seem aware of it; she looked at the retreating Guardian and her eyes were wide and wondering. Zelda thought, perhaps, that Paya had seen that same look on her face.

"What happened?" Paya said.

"I think… I think something important. Let's go. I have things I want to ask Purah, and to show her."

She took Paya's arm, and the two of them disappeared in rising strings of light.


	10. Guardians and the Goddess

"You managed to get _what?!_ " The last word was at a register so high it made the windows quiver, and Zelda felt it like a knife shoved into her eardrum.

"Yes, well, you can see them for yourself if you like, and—" Purah snatched the Sheikah Slate out of her hands with such force it was a small wonder that her fingers didn't go with it, the girl's strength and insistence far exceeding the apparent limits of her frame. By the time she realized the slate was gone Purah had already dashed away, hoisting herself up onto the chair next to the table and laying the slate flat. She waved Symin over, and after Zelda and Paya exchanged glances the two of them cautiously joined the researchers.

The ease and speed with which Purah shifted through the different functions of the slate easily surpassed her own, leaving her somewhere between impressed and terrified as the tiny hands swept across the different segments of the photographic album she'd been building. Plant plant plant monster weapon plant, and then an image of a great deal of complicated machinery covered in luminescent ichor and smoke. Symin leaned in closer, adjusted his glasses, and let out a low whistle.

"Fascinating. The corruption is dispersed when the Guardians cease to function, though the Bloody Earth is capable of restoring them unless the core loses its Malice. I've never seen the like before."

"Neither have I," Purah said, leaning in close and adjusting her own glasses with a gesture identical to Symin's. Zelda thought that she must have picked it up from him, then belatedly realized that it was probably the other way around. "How did you manage to get a look inside of it while it was functional?"

"Paya and I overloaded its optic sensor while sawing through the armor on the opposite side."

Purah looked up, her face very close to Zelda's and her expression disbelieving. "You looped a Guardian's reboot sequence? Long enough to do _this_?" Zelda only nodded, and Purah blinked at her before looking to Paya, who must have nodded in the affirmative because Purah then sighed through her nose. "Remind me not to get into a fight with the two of you." She flipped through multiple pictures, then flipped back, stopping to analyze each shot at different angles. "I wish I had been there. Seeing it for myself would have been worth more than all the research we've put into the Guardians since I moved to Hateno. See, Symin, where the servomechanisms are in different positions?"

"I believe that's where they were positioned before we forced the reboot sequence." Purah didn't look up this time, but her nod was satisfying. "We did not fight it on perfectly even terrain."

"Hm. That means that certain mechanisms don't actually have a default position and have to be adjusted back to neutral when it's finished with the reboot, which is probably why they're so slow to get up when you force the cycle." She flipped to the first picture that Zelda had taken of the interior of the Guardian after the Malice had been expelled.

The silence stretched out for perhaps five seconds, but the sudden pressure in the room during those five seconds threatened to blow the doors off the hinges. Symin's expression was wild as he looked from the picture to Purah to Zelda and back again, his bulging eyes nearly pressing up against the inside of his spectacles. Purah was in that strange country between holding perfectly still and her entire body beginning to vibrate like a tuning fork.

Purah flipped back, checked the previous picture, tapped on the Malice, especially the Malice in the core. Then she returned to the post-cleansing picture and tapped on the clean core. The tap was loud in the quiet of the room, invested with a kind of subtle violence, and when she looked at Zelda her expression was wholly unreadable. "What did you do. No. How did you do this. I want you to tell me every detail of how you did this."

The force of Purah's regard was like a physical blow, and Zelda looked back to Paya for reassurance—only to discover that she had backed up a full four feet at the look in Purah's eyes. Well. At least it wasn't just her, then. She turned back to the woman in a child's body, steeled herself, and told her. All of it, the power that rested in that place inside her thoughts, the way that she intuited the relationship between her power and the energy that drove the Guardians, the tiny amount that she had gathered up because the Calamity could sense it above a certain threshold, the method by which she had implanted it into the core, the way it felt as if the light had insulated her from the Malice.

"…and after I let go, the goddess's power flowed through the same channels as the Malice had before, burning all of it cleanly away. You can see here," and she reached past Purah, pointing at the accumulated grime on the interior of the armor and certain components, "that it did not clear out _all_ of the Malice. But I sensed that the core was the control unit for every other function the Guardian had and thought that if I injected power into it then the rest would take care of itself, in time. The active part of the Malice was located inside of it, so unless I'm wrong then it shouldn't be able to—"

Purah's hand rested on hers, and though her grip was very light (and her hands too weak to hurt even if she tried) the tension in her forearm was nearly total. Purah did not look at her; both of them kept looking at the screen. "What happened after that."

"After that, we stopped forcing the reboot sequence, and waited to see if its behavior would change." She removed Purah's hand, very gently, before straightening. "Paya stayed prepared to put an arrow through its optic sensor, since we were confident that its targeting system would give us time to react if it was still hostile, but… it wasn't." Now she grinned, because Symin's jaw had fallen open and Purah looked like she was about to explode. "It focused on us, seemed to dismiss us as non-threats, and then returned to the same route it had been patrolling before." Realizing that she really should have stayed to observe the effects, she coughed self-consciously into her own fist. "I theorized that, without the Malice acting as an insulator for some of its systems, it might be able to utilize its weapon systems more effectively than before, and might level them against monsters in the area, but… we didn't have time to try to observe them. I thought you would want to know right away." _I wanted to tell you what we'd managed to do and was so excited I forgot to follow up on it_.

Purah switched off the Sheikah Slate's screen and held it out to her, her expression carefully blank as Zelda took the tool back. Then she hopped down from the chair, walked calmly to one of the workbenches that sat in the corners of the laboratory, and began to pack a rucksack with measuring instruments that Zelda did not recognize. "You'll take me to another Guardian and show me how you did it. I will observe and try to give a more complete explanation of what's happening."

Zelda winced, thinking of the Guardians that patrolled the areas near to that one, and how little she knew about the routes they took and the overlap between them. "I think if we want to do that then we would need to find an isolated Guardian that's still able to move on its own, and I don't know where any of those are."

"I don't either, but Impa does. She's been keeping tabs on every Guardian and its movements since the Calamity, so she'll be able to tell us where to go." Her body language was shifting as she spoke, and the urgency of her packing began to kick up, too. There was a light in her eyes, a manic energy that spoke to a hunger that Zelda recognized. There was a kinship between them, nearly as intimate as it was unnerving.

"Auntie Purah," Paya said, and Purah didn't look up, "you _want_ to go see Grandmother? I mean… now?"

Now Purah stopped, set her rucksack down, looked at Paya, and planted both of her fists on her hips. Zelda could almost _see_ the gears shifting in Purah's brain as her excitement and hunger fed into her authority, as she plotted out the best course of action to get what she wanted. In her prime, Purah must have been formidable indeed; actually, no, she was formidable _now_. "Of course I don't, but it doesn't matter! This discovery is bigger than some petty familial embarrassment! If my little sister wants to make a scene about how surprising this is, then she'll just have to make a scene! And where do you think _you're_ going?" She wheeled on Symin, who during the commotion had started to pack his own gear.

"With you," he said, then realized the tone she had used and glared at her. "I _am_ going with you. You think you can leave me behind when you're going to be working on live Guardians? _Repairing_ them? Restoring them to their original functionality and observing how they operate without the influence of the Malice? You could cut my arms and legs off and I'd drag myself behind you with my teeth!"

Purah made an exasperated sound, rolling her eyes and pushing her glasses up. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous! You said yourself, this could be the most important discovery of our lives!"

"I need you here, Symin! I need you monitoring the lab and making sure that these experiments don't explode!" She put up one hand in a warding gesture to cut off his reply. "No, I understand, so I'll make you a deal, all right? You stay here while I go out and gather this intel, and I'll try to use what I've learned to see if I can engineer some way for _us_ to override the effects of the Malice. I'm going to make a rune for it, if at all possible, a way for us to _control_ Guardians. If I _do_ , then I'll let you test it. Understand? I'll build you your own Guardian, and you'll get to control it as much as you like!"

The negotiation could have gone on for much longer: they didn't know if the Sheikah Slate could transport _three_ people, didn't know if they could find another Guardian in similar condition, and the expedition would be enormously more dangerous for someone with the body of a six-year-old. The arguments practically wrote themselves.

But the look in Symin's eye was hungry, too, and at Purah's offer he licked his lips, and Zelda knew he'd been defeated.

* * *

In contrast to her sister, Impa's hand moved slowly and deliberately over the face of the Sheikah Slate. That she understood what she was seeing was beyond question, but Zelda wondered at how little excitement the photographs engendered. The elder nodded at images of the Guardian's interior infested with Malice, then nodded again at the images of the same Guardian cleansed of Ganon's power. She gave no other sign that she was looking at anything important.

Zelda, Paya, and Purah were standing in the main hall of Impa's manor, Zelda at the center of the group with Paya on her right and Purah on her left. Purah was fidgeting ceaselessly, every passing moment seeing both the rise and fall of what Zelda expected were identical anxieties. She had not spoken yet, leaving all the talking to Zelda, and that as much as anything else spoke to how nervous she was about this meeting; Impa had not addressed Purah, either. Paya, for her part, was trying very hard not to let her attention dart between her great aunt and grandmother, and she was mostly succeeding.

Finally, Impa looked up from the screen. "With the goddess's power you were able to free the Guardian from the Calamity's control. A mighty work, indeed." Zelda nodded and Impa returned to the images, lost in thought. "Why did you need to open the back of it?"

That question struck Zelda by surprise; what did she mean, _why_? The fact that she even bothered to ask, when the answer was so obvious, made her wonder if it was a trick question. But, no, if it _was_ then she didn't understand the trick, so it was better to answer honestly. "So that I could observe the Malice and the inner workings of the Guardian. Opening the armor also allowed me to reach in and place the light within the Guardian's core, though that wasn't our intent at first."

"Hm." Impa's expression shifted, very subtly, into something that Zelda might have construed for amusement in anyone else. "Princess, where is the power of the goddess?"

Another trick question? "Inside of me." Her tone betrayed her irritation; let it, then.

Now Impa raised her eyebrows. "Inside of you, you say. Where, inside of you, does the strength of Hylia rest? Is it in your chest? Your stomach? Your skull?" She gestured at her own diaphragm. "If we performed surgery, would we find the organ of Hylia next to your appendix?" She shook her head, sending the ornamentation on her hat swinging slowly back and forth. "I am speaking nonsense; that you think so is plain. Still, this is a point I want to make to you here, now: the power of the goddess is not limited to the space occupied by your body." She hopped down off of her cushions, making her way across the room to stand in front of Zelda, looking up at her with eyes rimmed in wrinkles but still bright and dangerous. "Draw upon your power. You don't have to show it to me, just draw on it, the smallest amount you can."

In part she wanted to resist this request, to push back against Impa's suppositions, but something about what the sheikah elder was saying tickled at the back of her thoughts, teased at half-remembered possibilities. As she receded into her own thoughts, reaching down within herself into that quiet darkness seeking light, an image became frighteningly sharp: two of the women within her, herself and the Princess, wanted to reject what Impa was saying because they could not intuit it. The third one, the older one who knew the face of the goddess and the touch of her power, was reaching out to grasp hold of her awareness.

She did not shrink away. She brushed only barely against the molten gold of Hylia's strength, not actively taking any except for that which clung to her of its own accord. It was an amount so tiny, so miniscule, that she doubted it would be enough to light a candle. _But… no, that is not true. Even this one mote of light could brighten the world_.

She opened her eyes and looked down at Impa. From what she could tell the world around her had not changed, and there was no golden light save for the miniscule bit that she held in her… thoughts? She had not thought of it before this moment. Where was it? Behind her eyes, in her skull, as she had imagined it many times before? In her physical heart? In some secret organ of the gods, as Impa had joked? She didn't understand and was thrilled by her own ignorance. She nodded to Impa.

"Good. Now, take that fraction and give it to Paya, just as you gave a fraction to the Guardian."

 _That_ , now, that was… could she do that? Did it even make sense? There was a certain parallel between placing her power into the core of the Guardian and passing it to another person, but _could_ she? The Guardians were already conduits for a power attuned to or derived from Hylia's; a human body was not. At least, that was what she had assumed. _Yet I am._

Paya's face was crimson as the two of them shared a look, and with an effort that must have been one of the greatest in her entire life Paya extended her hand for Zelda to grasp hold of it.

"Not with your hand," Impa said, and both girls looked at her, Zelda's surprise shifting over into bewilderment. "Just give it to her, without using bodily contact. The idea that you must perform some physical act to impart your power in another place or another body is a relic of your own physical existence. Zelda, as your memory returns to you you will understand this better, but for the work you are intending to do it would behoove you to understand that the power you wield is not _physical_ , or at least not wholly. It exists first and foremost on a spiritual plane that is parallel to the physical one we inhabit; distance, material barriers, the _concrete_ , are shackles placed on your power by your perception of them as immutable. In many ways you are right, and your understanding of the world is useful in helping you move through it, understand it, and master it; but in others you are wrong, because while we in this room are mostly limited by the reality of our bodies, _you are not_. We are out of your arm's reach, but nothing is beyond the reach of your powers so long as you realize it. Do not reach for Paya with your hand; reach for her with the power. Go on. Try."

To use the power was not as simple as attempting to tense a muscle; she could not flex her temples and improve her own efficacy. It was a natural thing, in many ways unconscious, like the beating of her own heart. How could one make an unconscious action into a conscious one? She didn't know; she had no frame of reference by which to understand what she was trying to do, much less how to do it. It didn't even make sense.

But, no. It did make sense. She had her frame of reference. She closed her eyes.

Do not think that Zelda was not afraid; this fear was with her, had been with her from the beginning, and would continue to build inside of her until it was all that was left, if she let it. Retreating inside of herself, into the space where she carried the goddess's power, was brushing up against ancient knowledge that she would have yearned for if it did not terrify her so badly. She was concerned with the concrete world that Impa said she should be reaching beyond, and the concrete world and its concerns called her back, back to the stability and simplicity of her feet planted on wooden flooring, of a belief that the world was mutable but understandable.

 _This is larger than that. This is larger than everything that I care about. It is larger than me_.

That she had no frame of reference was a lie she told to protect herself; she had one. The memory of the goddess-power stirred inside of her, waiting to grow, its awareness dull and murky like a newborn. She took hold of it, of herself, wondered briefly what she was giving up by doing this. Perhaps it did not matter.

The goddess-knowledge was a fragile thing, shaky inside of her own thoughts, and as she tried to wrap her awareness around it she could feel the supports of her mind immediately trying to crush it down, make it fit a framework that she was more familiar and comfortable with. The knowledge bent and twisted in the grip of her concrete thoughts, and it was with incredible effort that she was able to push her assumptions away from it, to clear a space in her mind where it could sit, and grow, and reach out.

The world shifted, and she had to fight the urge to gasp.

Impa was in front of her, a person whose countenance was like flame, steady and calm and… she did not have the words to try to translate it into a physical likeness, the experience of this knowledge was so forceful that it shoved her physical awareness and her concrete mind _away_ from it. Impa _was_ , and she could feel the flow of the old woman's thoughts, her experiences, the pain in her back that she alleviated very slightly by pressing her fist against her spine, the expectation she had that this would work, _was_ working, some part of Zelda's physical body must have betrayed what she was doing because now Impa's expectation flared like a flame fed oil. Purah was on the other side, watching her, a storm of observation and skepticism and grasping with the concepts that were being paraded in front of her like a new theory of the workings of the universe. She saw here a new potential understanding, new opportunities to measure herself and the progress her people had made and hidden away, but she felt _awe_ , too, real awe of Zelda as she stood next to her. Zelda did not want to feel that awe, but it was plainer than if Purah had shouted it.

Paya was there, cool and burning and expectant and frightened and there were shades to her that struck Zelda full in the face, confronting her with reality for what assuredly was but should _not_ have been the first time.

Paya was _infatuated_ with her, aflame with the passion of it, so intensely that it formed the tree around which so many other conflicting perspectives and motivations twisted themselves like ivy. She wanted to serve, and to be useful, and good, and not to reach beyond herself or her place or to drag Zelda down or bring a terrible end to the quest that they were on together. She stood on the precipice of a self-denial so enormous that this flame would go out and become something else entirely. And Zelda could not help her; not as she was, not with what the world needed of her.

 _Oh, Paya…_ Her awareness quaked as her rational mind tried to assert itself, and she shunted it back.

The idea of pretending to distance was farcical; Zelda reached out, not with her hand but with that deeper and more essential part of herself, and brushed against Paya in that realm where spirits walked. The barest touch, lighter than a breeze, and with it she passed the power on.

Paya gasped next to her, and the sound was so sharp in her ear that her physical mind, her frightened awareness that she had spent so long thinking of as her _real self_ , slammed back into primacy. The goddess-awareness was shunted away in a flash and she found herself recoiling from it, whipping from acceptance to terror with such shock that she experienced a moment of vertigo that was more than physical. She should not be that afraid of herself. She could not show that she was.

Instead she was steady as she looked at Paya, and her voice was calmer and more even than she thought it could have been. "Did it work?" The act of asking was, itself, a kind of lie.

"I, I think so," Paya said, and she looked at her hands and hopped back and forth from foot to foot. "I felt something like a spark in my mind, or… or somewhere, and then it… I don't know how to describe it, but I think it worked. I feel _light_." And she _sounded_ light, too, as if she'd been given some secret thing of enormous import and intimacy. Zelda wondered if Impa had done that on purpose and if she had a better read of her granddaughter than Zelda did.

Impa nodded her head as Purah took a notebook and pen and began to write furiously. "It is as I thought. And how are you feeling, Zelda?"

"Drained," she said, and that was the easiest truth she had ever told. "It was an effort, though not a physical one. It felt as if my physical awareness was fighting against me the entire time, and at the first external stimulus it asserted control and snapped me back."

Again, Impa nodded. "That will fade, as your awareness grows. But now you know, definitely, that you do not need to carve up a Guardian to use your power on it. Your physical awareness will be less of a tether as your power grows; by the end, I should hope you will return to your prior state." Satisfied, she turned away, walked her slow walk back to her stacked cushions, and Paya was next to her as if summoned, helping her settle again.

"Impa," she said, "how do you know so much about this? You shouldn't. Based on the memories I've recovered, I had no one to teach me about the power, or how it worked, or how to access it. Why would you be better equipped to explore and define it than I was, even with a hundred years' time?"

Impa smiled and shook her head as Paya backed away from her. "I would not, except that you were gracious enough to describe it to me. I traveled with you, very briefly, in those final days, and you passed some modicum of knowledge to me. Your family has been guarding that power, matrilineally, since Ganon was sealed away ten thousand years ago, and for just as long it has been kept secret from everyone except for the next woman to inherit it. You decided that was not wise, and that at least one other person should know." She gestured with her hand, to the sheikah slate. "It was part of a greater plan you had, for when Ganon suffered its defeated. You would have seen knowledge recovered, spread, and put to greater purpose for the people. You told me enough for me to reason out certain principles, and I have held them to my heart in hopes of meeting you again. I tell these things to you now, when we are not alone, because I mean to pass the secret on too. As you commanded." She inclined her head, though she could not do so very far from her seated position. "Forgive me for not consulting with you. I hope that you will continue to educate Paya, so that she may also bear the knowledge when I am no longer able."

No one said anything; who could? Purah scribbled furiously, lost in her own world, still ignored.

"But that is not the reason you're here," Impa said. "If you've come to me with news of what you've done, then you, being who you have always been, will want to repeat your feat to better understand it. You don't know where the Guardians are, but my agents have been keeping track of them for years. The nearest mobile Guardian that wanders alone is to the north of the village, in the Lanayru Wetlands. Its circuit usually keeps it close to Bannan Island."

She had seen the wetlands, standing at the ridge just behind the shrine overlooking the village. "Is that the same wetlands where the shrine is resting?" Impa nodded, and Zelda felt a surge, a thrill of possibility and purpose. If she could do this without having to open a Guardian, without even having to _touch_ them, then… the possibilities were endless.

"I don't know if I like this," Purah said, the first words she'd spoken since coming to Kakariko. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I know you need to do it. It's more important to get your abilities working than it is for me to understand how to restore the Guardians. Still, it won't be as effective for my research."

A good point; given that, perhaps it would be best to take Purah back. But then, no, that thought sat poorly with her. "If I can pass some part of my power on to you, then I may be able to expand your awareness enough that you can get a sense of what is happening inside of the Guardian, not far removed from my own understanding. Would that suffice?"

Purah nodded, a slow and calm and controlled motion completely at odds with the shock in her eyes. To be able to see the world as the goddess saw it was the greatest gift that Zelda could have offered her, and that it was _possible_ was something she would remember in the future.

"Will you be able to reach the shrine in a reasonable amount of time? If you like, I can have your horses retrieved for you."

"Thank you, Impa, but I do not think that will be necessary. Purah built a second paraglider for us and has one of her own; it will probably be quickest for us to approach from the air."

Impa nodded, and the nod became another stiff bow. "Excellent. I will wait for news of your success."

Paya bowed deeply to her grandmother, and Zelda did a quick check of her tunic to make sure that all of her notes and note-taking supplies were where she expected them to be. Purah approached Impa's seat, looking up at her younger (so to speak, Zelda supposed) sister, and her tiny hands were balled into fists. Impa looked down at her, expression impassive, though there was some hidden meaning there that Zelda was sure would be impossible to parse except for sisters who had known each other for more than a century. Impa did not speak, looking down at Purah; she waited, though not for long.

"Why haven't you said anything yet?!" Purah's words were an explosion, and Zelda actually recoiled at the tone. "I know you have to know what's going on, and you _must_ have questions! Why haven't you asked them? I've been standing here stewing in my own anxiety for ten minutes, waiting for you to say _anything_ , so out with it! I've had more than enough of your practiced nonchalance!"

"I have said nothing because nothing needs saying." Slowly Impa leaned forward, her face looming closer to her sister's as she spoke. "What we have to discuss between each other, concerning your state of being and _how_ you arrived at it, is not for the ears of children. When we talk, it will be between the two of us, and we will speak at length. Do you not agree this is wise, honored _elder_ sister?" Their faces were nearly touching now, and so much of her expression had not changed but now Impa's eyes were wide and wild-looking, easily as intense and more compared to Purah's learning of the Guardians.

Purah swallowed, and the sound was loud in the quiet of the room. "Yes. Yes, I think that will be best, honored younger sister." She stepped back, and bowed, and Impa inclined her head in return.

Zelda and Purah left the manor. Paya, who had been hiding outside and peeking around the threshold for the past twenty seconds, closed the door behind them.

* * *

The three were huddled behind a rocky hill on the eastern side of Bannan Island, setting up supplies as the Guardian quietly but steadily continued its circular march just on the other side. The patrol range of this Guardian was probably the shortest that Zelda had seen in her travels, which suggested that something might have been wrong with its navigation controllers. Purah was of the opinion that it was probably degradation in the programming that defined where it should be patrolling, but Zelda only knew this from reading over her shoulder as she jotted down notes.

Guardians could detect voices, though the distance and volume necessarily varied from machine to machine, so they were silent out of what Purah thought was an abundance of caution but Zelda and Paya agreed was only prudence. It was without words that they agreed on the course of action, that Paya climbed up high enough to get a vantage point on the Guardian, ready to shut it down if they were detected, that Purah sat next to Zelda as Zelda reached inside of herself.

Drawing upon her power to give to someone else the first time had required an expansion of her understanding of herself; the second time was easier, though not by a very great deal. She brushed against her power, taking nearly as much as she had used to cleanse the last Guardian. Purah was next to her, but she was only aware of her by the sound of her breathing, the quiet rustle of her clothing, the _click_ of her nails touching her glasses frames. She tried to be aware of Purah in the same way she had been aware before, not as a body but as an essential _presence_ , but she could not.

 _Do not be afraid_ , she scolded herself. _Perspective will not harm you. It might change you, but if it does then you need the change it brings. You have to believe that. You don't have any choice_. She did not believe, but it didn't matter. She opened herself to the goddess-awareness, which unfurled more eagerly than it had before, a flower seeking the sunlight of the outer world.

Oh, why was she ever afraid of this, _always_ afraid of this? The world was around her, and she saw it with senses that made her eyes seem like crude instruments wrought by imperfect hands. The texture of Purah's life next to her was almost wholly different from her state in Impa's manor; she wondered, in the analytic part of her mind that dozed beneath the goddess-awareness, if a life was simply the reflection of a moment, like a mirror held up to the greater world around it. Maybe that was so. Because she had not done so before, she turned the fullness of her attention on herself, and what she saw sent a shockwave rippling through her thoughts.

She could _see_ the three she had thought were simply metaphorical constructs, though the state of their being was not as she had imagined. The one her mortal mind insisted was _herself_ , the person who had woken up in the chamber, occupied the same space as the woman of a hundred years ago who had fallen in love with the hero. Zelda was like a suspension of matter in fluid, and the individual elements of her swirled in her mind, pulsing with energy and life and _insistence_ and she did not know if that meant they would become more perfectly aligned or if one would overpower the other. For some reason, that made her curious rather than afraid. There was so much more of the amnesiac than the woman from before. Would it be the same if she looked again after regaining more of her memory?

The goddess awareness was a more concrete thing seated deep inside of her, bright and burning, not integrated so perfectly with the rest of her, though it reached up tentatively to the other selves that swirled above. A golden tether reached out from it, anchoring it to the power of the goddess seated at the very core of her being, and to turn her attention on it was like looking directly into the sun, only there was no pain, no harsh glare. It was glorious; she had no other words for it, could feel that glory inside of her as surely as if she had engineered it. _Perhaps I did_.

She reached out to Purah, but instead of placing all that power directly into Purah's thoughts she shaped it into a strand, anchoring one end of it in her celestial consciousness, forming a relay with the goddess's power for which her own awareness was a node. She narrowed the connection, packing it more and more densely until it was a golden, shining thing nearly as brilliant as the heart of the power itself, and then she placed the end in Purah's awareness, forming their minds into a single network.

Purah gasped beside her, but she held onto herself and did not lose hold of her awareness or the connection.

Purah's thoughts slammed into hers with the force of experience and curiosity, and the insistence and order of them made her thoughts into words in that soundless space they shared.

"How are you doing this?" Purah asked in her not-voice.

"I'm using my mind as a kind of filter, so you can see some part of my awareness."

Purah's mind flashed through possibilities and meanings and consequences with a practiced alacrity; the speed of her thoughts was beyond what Zelda would have thought a person capable of. "You were exhausted by much less before. This may put you in danger."

"I do not think so... But I am unsure, and you may be right. We will work quickly."

She moved her awareness and Purah followed her, and the two of them observed the Guardian, not as a creature of armor and mechanisms but as a collection of energies and forces that intermingled and repelled and ate at each other. She could recognize the energies of its different systems interacting with its frame, how the hum of its capacitors had not degraded but the fine tuning of its targeting systems was out of sync with the rest of it. She could feel the Malice swirling inside of it, blocking and choking the brighter energies that should have been driving it so cleanly.

Purah's awareness flitted ahead of hers, viewing the Guardian from multiple angles, and the inventor was giving off a low, wordless hum every time she looked from a new angle. Zelda could see from Purah's perspective, felt the echoes of her thoughts if not the specifics, and felt her understanding of the Guardians expanding as Purah's observations enriched them both.

Seconds had passed, less than seconds, but now she could feel the strain of the outside world pressing against her awareness. Oh, yes, this _was_ quite a lot of effort, even if she wouldn't feel it until she let go. Mindful of how quickly she needed to work she drew upon her power again, measuring it by feel. Her body was separated from the Guardian's by distance and by stone, but that did not matter now; in the space between spaces she thrust with her strength, and the power of Hylia poured into the Guardian's heart.

There was a flash, and she held on—not for herself but for Purah, who was observing all of these happenings with the same giddy insistence and wild adulation that one would have expected in a researcher given the freedom of being a child again. Purah's understanding was less spiritual, more concrete, than the goddess-awareness insisted it should be, but she could feel the way Purah was analyzing particulate interactions between the Malice and Zelda's power and knew that those might matter, too. She had to learn, learning was the most paramount of all things, and if she could learn from Purah then she would hold on for as long as possible.

The effort told, now, and the walls of her mind began to shake. She tried to shield Purah from the impact of it, but the echo of her effort reached across the tether and Purah's attention turned back to her for an instant. For an instant after that Purah looked at the Guardian, as if taking a snapshot of it in her mind, and then called out across the quiet: "Let go!"

Zelda let go, and the physical world crashed back into place. The goddess-consciousness collapsed like liquid and her first-self slid easily into control. She looked up at an open sky that looked like rain. She would not be afraid of the change this time. She would not. She would _not_.

Purah staggered to her feet, plainly disoriented and not letting it delay her in the least. "Paya!"

Paya hissed through her teeth but stopped short of scolding her great aunt as she looked down from the top of the rock, eyes wide, and then glanced back and forth between the Guardian and Purah as if trying to decide which of them was more dangerous.

"Paya, stop that, it worked, and also I can't stand up!" As if on cue Purah's legs collapsed under her, and she braced herself against the rock with her hands. "It's safe! Help me up so I can watch what's going on!"

There was a moment where Zelda could nearly _see_ as Paya's duty pulled her in two directions: one in obedience toward her great aunt, one in keeping all of them safe. The moment passed, and Paya's face was set with determination, and she leaped on top of the rock face. She drew her bow, nocked an arrow, and pulled the string back. She whistled, high and shrill, a sound that she'd probably been trained to use as a signal for other sheikah agents. The Guardian whipped its head toward the sound, focusing on her, and Zelda held her breath in spite of how sure she _should_ have been.

Nothing happened. The Guardian turned away from Paya and continued on its patrol as if she wasn't there.

" _Paya!_ "

"Y-yes, auntie!"

* * *

The purging of the Malice had restored some part of the Guardian's functionality almost immediately; its patrol route expanded during the second circuit after its repair, and Purah scribbled notes furiously as it stalked toward the shrine. There were lizalfos in that area; Zelda had avoided them when activating the portal gate. She wondered if the Guardian was aware of them, or if it would only notice them if they moved.

As if answering her question its weapon discharged with an eruption of light and fire, and one of the lizalfos was blasted to ashes on the spot. The others rose with startled howls, turning to the Guardian in confusion, weapons raised. One of them was red, two were blue, and one was black—it was this last, the greatest threat, that the Guardian fired on next.

"Curious," Purah said, not looking up. "It seems that the Malice _was_ interfering with its targeting systems. That probably wasn't Ganon's intent, but it does give us advantages when trying to bring them down for repair." More explosions roared in the distance, jets of water and soil leaping high every time the Guardian fired.

"Oh, I hope it will be all right!" Paya's concern was so raw that Purah looked up from her notes and Zelda looked over, too. "See how they're attacking it?"

It was true that the lizalfos _were_ rallying, bone spears and three-pronged swords in hand, dashing quickly forward to get inside of its legs and attack its body directly. The Guardian's response was surgical, though; it backpedaled faster than a horse could run, firing multiple blasts in its retreat, creating cover for itself as it did so. The lizalfos staggered as a group, and it blasted the black-scaled one again, incinerating it utterly. Its sword went sailing through the air, landing nearly a hundred feet away.

"I don't think you need to worry about it," Zelda said, resting one hand on Paya's shoulder. "It was built to fight like this. It would take something as powerful as a hinox, or perhaps a lynel, to stand a real chance against it." Watching the Guardian, though, which fought on her behalf, she thought she understood some small part of what Paya meant. "For what it's worth, I hope it stays safe too. It's just woken up, and it only seeks to protect us, so I hope it is able to do that without losing itself."

"I can't believe how sentimental you two are," Purah said, nose once again buried in her notebook. She was barely paying attention to the world around her, except to occasionally glance up and observe some specific detail about the Guardian's movements to record it. "It's a machine built for this purpose. Even if it _did_ end up getting into a fight it couldn't win, wouldn't that be the happiest thing for it, to fulfill its purpose so perfectly?"

"Hey, is that Guardian attacking those monsters?" the Zora standing behind them said.

The three of them shrieked in unison; as she shrieked Paya spun on one heel, body low, drew her short sword and swung it upward, stopping the blade less than an inch away from the Zora woman's throat.

"WHOA! Whoa! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you! I most definitely didn't mean to scare you!" Her hands were held up, fingers splayed, to show that she was unarmed. "I saw what was happening and came over to see!"

Before Zelda had caught her breath, much less spoken, Paya lowered her blade and put it away. Zelda stepped past her, hands folded in front of her with a practiced air of dignity that she could guess at the origin of, and nodded. "My apologies. Paya has been assigned to protect me and is very dutiful." She inclined her head. "I am Zelda, and this is Paya and Purah. You've come upon us during an experiment; I apologize that we were so distracted that this happened." _I am also sorry that you saw fit to scare the daylights out of us, whether you admit it or not_.

"My name is Tula. It is a pleasure to meet you." She recovered her composure quickly and easily, as if Paya hadn't been about to cut her throat. "An experiment? Does that mean that you did… that?" She inclined her head toward the Guardian in the distance, which had finished dispatching the lizalfos and was now scanning the area around the shrine to be sure it was clear.

"Indeed, that was us. We're working on a system that can be used to reclaim the Guardians." She didn't need to know more than that; it was already probably too much.

"That's incredible! I haven't heard something that fantastic in almost a century! To think that you could… wow!" Tula stared at the Guardian for what seemed a long time, lost in thought, and then seemed to remember something as she looked back at Zelda again. "This might be a silly question, but… are you a Hylian?"


	11. A Prince, a Princess, and a King

Between Mercay Island and Boné Pond there was a place where bokoblins and lizalfos used to tread, bridges built of wood and bones from long-forgotten, titanic beasts. That small fortress was empty now, its sentries thrown into the water or blown out of it with concussive force, weapons left where they fell. A single bokoblin horn floated in the water, pulled along by a gentle current. It had been judged too unimportant to bother swimming for.

Past the fort, on the northeast bank of the pond, there stood a rocky hill that could have been a mountain except that no one had bothered to name it. Hastily constructed fortifications stood here, too, planks of wood meant to funnel intruders along particular paths before they had been blown into splinters, independent platforms constructed to give overlapping lines of sight that had not extended far enough to see the attacks that had made them collapse. Moblins and bokoblins had guarded that place, that path up the little hill that was not important enough to call a mountain. They were gone, now.

That emptiness wound its way up the path that spiraled up the hill; here a spot of matted grass where a cloaked lizalfos had lain in wait, there a scorch mark that marked where a bokoblin's patrol came to a sudden end. Footprints were in ready supply, the narrow two-toed tread of the bokoblins in places obscured by the heavier tread of the moblins or the much wider phalangeal spread of lizalfos. These were the only sure sign that their owners had stood on that place, and the rain was quickly washing them away.

A careful observer might see a single pair of more human footprints, here and there; there would have been two pairs, but one of the walkers had a more practiced, subtle step than the other.

At the top of the hill stood one of the Sheikah towers, the rise of which had spurred the building of the little fort and the fortifications on the hill, the collection of guards and sentries that had manned both of them, and which had drawn the two women that had dismantled it all. Atop the Sheikah tower, not at all shielded from the rain that fell in a ceaseless torrent, Zelda and Paya took in the land below them, Zelda through the lens of the Sheikah Slate and Paya through the trained sharpness of her eye.

"Inogo Bridge is a reasonable place to wait for passerby," Zelda said. "The road that leads to the West wends all the way to Akkala, and with the rain falling the way it is there's almost no way in to Zora's Domain except by crossing that bridge."

"Unless you are a Zora," Paya said.

"Yes, excepting that." She wiped at her forehead, flicking away the water that was standing in her eyebrows and running down into her eyes. She would have preferred to swap out her stealth armor for her Hylian tunic and hood, which would do a much better job of keeping the rain off of her, but she'd been in the rain for hours now and it was too late to have an appreciable effect on her comfort. Paya was wearing an identical set of armor, which Zelda took as an indicator of how seriously she was treating this meeting and the journey leading up to it; the white-haired woman hadn't even pulled down her mask during the climb. Zelda couldn't imagine what kind of training and focus it took to resist that urge. "It's a bit of a shame that Purah wanted to go back so quickly; I think she would have liked seeing a Sheikah tower up close."

That struck Paya enough to pull her out of her vigil, and she looked at Zelda, quietly thoughtful. Then: "I think we would have been hard-pressed to get her to come along. She was very eager to share her findings with Symin and get back to work." The question wasn't spoken but Zelda could hear it hanging in the air between them, so she waited, filling the time by estimating the margin of error the two of them would have if they chose an aerial approach to the shrine that sat above the bridge. Paya was deeply curious, though not wholly used to asking questions which hadn't been set up for her. As Zelda wondered if that was perhaps Impa's fault, Paya finally asked, "What was it like, when you showed her what you were doing to the Guardian?"

It was a function of her own self-centeredness, Zelda supposed, that she had never thought how that experience must have been like for Paya. Anchored in the physical world, focused solely on protecting her charge and her great aunt, Paya had probably only drawn three or four breaths in the entire time it had taken Zelda and Purah to finish their tasks. When she had felt the need to test the Guardian's reactions it wasn't simply because she hadn't been aware of what had happened, it was because she _couldn't_ be. Purah and Zelda had been occupying an almost completely different reality; sharing in it had been impossible for someone who wasn't experiencing it directly.

"It is… difficult to put into words." She shut off the Sheikah slate, hung it from her belt. "Do you remember how you said it felt when I gave you part of Hylia's power? That you felt light, and aware of yourself?" Paya nodded, and Zelda breathed slowly, taking the moment's pause to try to arrange her thoughts. "What I did for Purah was anchor her consciousness directly to mine. Not in fullness, she didn't experience things in the same way I did, but she had a similar _perspective_. She sensed the world around her, the objects and people and the invisible energies coursing around us, as directly as you might feel sunlight on your skin. She could see the world and herself in … not the _same_ way as Hylia would see those things, but very closely. Oh, I'm not saying this very well. Imagine that your eyes and your hands are like words written on a page, describing an actual event or a place. The way the world looks when you use the goddess's power is as far removed from seeing with your eyes as seeing with your eyes is from words written on a page."

The words were clumsy out of her mouth, she could feel her tripping over the ideas even as she tried to string them together, but Paya nodded. Her mask made it hard to read the set of her mouth, but her eyes told the story well enough: she grasped what Zelda was saying, in principle if not in fact. Then: "I wonder if there might be value in that lesser experience, still. To read words on a page… we can build a world for ourselves and invest in it grandeur and meaning that our eyes would be hard-pressed to perceive on their own." With that, she turned back to her watch.

Zelda said nothing; there was nothing for her to say. Paya's words had, in a way, sent her spinning; on their face there was nothing wrong with them, though they ran counter to her own experiences. There _was_ a kind of profundity in the awareness of the goddess that was further removed from the experience of her senses than she could communicate with crude words, layers of understanding that unfurled in front of her in ways she hadn't imagined before.

But then, couldn't that speak to a deficiency in her thinking, rather than in her senses? Was she confusing _breadth_ of awareness with profundity? Did it make sense that to see something with one's own eyes was necessarily more meaningful than the act of thinking on it? _Did_ Hylia's awareness exist on the far end of a spectrum of meaning where one's own thoughts were the least meaningful?

The question arrested her for longer than she would have liked to admit, and she said nothing for the rest of the time they spent deciding on their next course of action. They agreed on where to go next and leaped from the top of the tower, the rain beating a staccato rhythm against their paragliders.

* * *

Sidon, Prince of the Zora, son of Dorephan, brother to Mipha who was lost, stood with arms crossed at the top of the tower standing at one end of the Inogo Bridge. His guard here had been long, stretching out over the past several days, ever since he had sent out a few of his trusted contemporaries in a search for a suitable Hylian. _Some_ Hylians had come by, of course, and he would never go so far as to say that they were not suitable to the task that he meant to ask of them, but each of them had either run away immediately upon his greeting them or else had opted not to hear the request he had for them.

Still! He would not give up hope; there was always plenty of hope to hold onto. He was sure that a Hylian would answer to his summons soon, as sure as he was in his compatriots, in himself, and in the essential righteousness of the world. That surety was essential in a prince, after all.

He never saw the two Hylians (they were assuredly not Zora, nor Gorons, nor Rito, none of whom would move through the storm in the same way these two did, and they were much too small to be Gerudo of traveling age) directly; they were silhouettes that were tracing spirals up the hill nearest to the bridge. He never would have seen them at all, save that they were thrown into brilliant relief by occasional eruptions of blue light and force, and the path they took up the hill was marked by the screams of monsters and the tell-tale puffs of smoke that marked the places where the monsters died. He was actually taken aback by the rapidity of their movement up the hill, and the relative quiet of it; if he had tried to make the same trek himself he could have bested the beasts, perhaps, but the methodical _stealth_ of their ascent was something well beyond him. Most of the monsters never knew they were there; even the Yiga Clan were not purported to be so skilled.

Their ascent stopped at the base of the strange tower that had emerged from the top of the hill; or at least he thought it did, as he heard and saw nothing more of them. What a thrilling possibility presented by the sudden quiet! Were they making their way down on foot, now, on the same path they had taken before? Would they be taking a more direct path, skipping down rocky outcroppings that Zora legs would not be able to navigate? _Would they come toward the bridge_? Oh, he hoped they would: anyone who could fight so valorously and skillfully against the forces of the Calamity must be mighty indeed, exactly the sort of person who Zora's Domain needed in this desperate hour! The idea of meeting them enraptured him, but he resolved to be patient: if he was patient, perhaps they would come to him. If they did not, he had a better idea about where to send people in the search for these strangers.

Given that they were Hylians, and not Rito, he was not watching the sky, and in the dark of the rain he would not have been able to see them clearly regardless. It would be cruel to blame him for not seeing them, but Sidon was, perhaps, slightly cruel in the standards he set for himself. Luckily, he did not have enough time to reflect on this.

Above him, near the shrine that had begun to glow only a few weeks back, he heard Torfeau cry out in alarm.

"What in the world? Torfeau!" He could not make himself heard over the rain, and she was too distant for him to reach in a hurry regardless, but he began thinking of the best way to try to scale the walls of the cliff to the shrine. Even slipping in the rain, he would reach her faster that way than by taking the long way around from the path to Akkala, and if something could make _Torfeau_ cry out…

"I think that is probably my companion," a soft, polite voice said behind him.

Sidon did not start, not he; he was not especially difficult to _surprise_ , but to startle him would require much more than one person sneaking up on him! He turned with a practiced slowness, not trying to hide how inquisitive he was feeling. The words could have easily been a threat, but they were not spoken so; they were an explanation and an apology rolled into one, speaking to a very careful verbal schooling that would have been the envy of any dignitary he had ever met.

The Hylian before him was a woman, unless he was badly mistaken, and wore the combat garb of the Sheikah. She was not Sheikah herself, judging by the golden color of her hair and by her accent, but she seemed to have had _some_ Sheikah training or else she wouldn't have been able to get the drop on him. Her eyes were immediately arresting, clear and fierce and forceful in their regard, the eyes of a woman with a mission who would see it through to the end no matter the effort or personal cost! Instantly he saw in her the essential qualities most necessary in the person that he had been seeking, far more important even than the fact that he was sure she was one of the two that had wiped out those monsters, that she had already proven herself a warrior worthy of renown.

"Please forgive our rudeness," she continued before he could reply. "My name is Zelda, and my companion, who will be joining us shortly, is Paya. We were told by a Zora named Tula that the prince, Sidon, was waiting at Inogo Bridge to speak to a Hylian. May I presume that you are he?"

That name, Zelda, struck him; he knew that name, though he could not have placed it precisely in the heat of this moment. He was full to bursting now, with excitement and surety and a sense of enormous well-being. Let her see it, then, let her get a full measure of him!

"Yes! I am Sidon, Prince of the Zora!" And see, how she did not even shrink back in a way that he could perceive when he flashed his teeth in a wide smile! "And you are Zelda, traveling with Paya—what good, fortuitous, _slightly familiar_ names! It is my enormous pleasure to meet you! Yes, as you have heard, I am searching for a Hylian, and I am hoping that you will be the one that I was looking for. I must admit I've been watching you—I saw your scaling of the hill, the way you dispatched those monsters on the way up to the top! Such skill, and speed, and courage! Zelda, tell me truly: you are considered a mighty warrior among your people, yes?"

Was it modesty that gave her pause, or an analytical acuity that she was actually turning toward the question? She broke eye contact with him, ridding herself of the distraction of his face, staring at a point in the middle distance. He did not rush her, not daring to interrupt whatever process would inform the answer she might give, regardless of how long it took. The answer was not instant, and probably was not easy to formulate; so much the better! How much more genuine a considered thought might be!

"I am not considered one," she said, "because so few know of me." Her eyes turned to him again, and now they carried a challenge, a _statement_ , and it struck him how alike Hylian and Zora expressions could be. "I _can_ fight. If I am not mighty then I have other avenues for addressing challenges, an ability to confront problems that would bring the mighty to their knees."

Sidon's soul was like a fire; he had been told that since he was very young, and he had much liked the comparison. He was hot where his sister had been cool, could use his presence to fill a room that might otherwise feel empty, and he had been told that the force of his personality was such that it could overwhelm anyone he spoke to without him meaning for it to, a weakness in a dignitary but strength for a warrior. They called him indomitable.

That was not true, and he realized it in that moment. Hearing that woman speak, recognizing the truth of her _belief_ if not the fact of her assertion, made him feel like he was brushing up against something much larger than himself, perhaps larger than the crown he would wear. This Zelda, standing at less than half his height, carrying what he now noticed were _several_ weapons, gave off a sense of authority and power that was belied by her frame. What _was_ it? He had an eye for potential, for personal quality, but he could not quite pinpoint what it was that made her so exceptional, save for something at the very core of him screaming that she _was_ , and that she was exactly what his people needed.

The realization passed in the course of a moment, only as long as it took him to flinch back from her words and for his mouth to turn upward in a grin. Truly, he was the most fortunate of princes.

"Wonderful! This is _most_ wonderful! I could never have imagined, or even _prayed_ , to be so lucky as to meet someone like you! Zelda, will you travel to Zora's Domain, the home of my people, and meet with me there? The Zora are in terrible need, and you may be the only one who can help them!"

Now her response was instant. "Yes. But as it happens, I would ask two things of you. These are not conditions," she said, so quickly and so smoothly that the thought hadn't had time to occur to him, "because if I am able then I will help you regardless. Consider these requests, made with no relation to what you have asked of me." She held up one finger. "My first request is that whatever allowances or accommodations you make for me should also be extended to Paya. She _is_ a great warrior, but I am asking you to extend these kindnesses to her because she is my companion."

"Of course! I am more than happy to extend the friendship of the Zora to anyone who would help us, and their companions to boot!" He hoped the next request would be so easy.

"Thank you. The other matter is that I was actually going to try to reach Zora's Domain regardless, though for my own purposes. Once the threat to your people has been addressed, I would be very grateful for whatever assistance you can render in helping me reach the Divine Beast Vah Ruta. I intend to see it restored to its original purpose."

The words were like ice thrown on his back on a warm day, a shock so severe yet so harmless that the thrill of it made him laugh out loud as his brain crackled with new energy. Of course! Of course, that is what she would ask. Why wouldn't it be, when she was already so suited? He did not try to hide his mirth, and to her credit she did not seem disturbed by it.

"Forgive me! Please, forgive me, that is not an unreasonable request, and I will do everything in my power to see that you are aided—not just by my hand, but by _all_ Zora. You have my word! Ah, it is so good that you are the one who came to our aid, Zelda!" He pointed across the bridge. "Follow the road and it will lead you straight to Zora's Domain; I have no doubt that you could reach it by other means, but this rain has made the surrounding cliffs almost impossible to scale. There are monsters along the path that can generate electricity, and the rain has made _them_ more dangerous as well. Still, as easily as you handled the beasts that guarded the tower, I have absolute faith that you can reach Zora's Domain with no problems!"

"Thank you," she said, her expression so neutral that he supposed she must have agreed with him! "Will you be traveling with us?"

"Oh, no. I would _like_ to, if only to see your work up close, but preparations must be made for your arrival! We Zora are strong enough swimmers to take the river upstream, even in this downpour, and I am the strongest swimmer among my people. With that in mind," ah, but he was forgetful to the point of rudeness. He reached into a pouch at his belt, drawing out a small flask of potion. "Forgive me. This is only a small thing, a trinket, but please accept it as a token of my faith in you. Drinking it can provide Hylians with resistance to harm from electricity, I am told." He held it out to her, and she took it with smooth grace, inclining her head in thanks. "Wonderful! Then I will see you at Zora's Domain!"

The energy within him was building until it demanded an outlet and so he leaped backward off the tower, turning in the air, feeling the pull of gravity guiding him so that as he twisted he was always pointed in the right direction. He was breathless, weightless, for a long second before plunging into the water.

* * *

Prince Sidon was as good as his word: he slipped into the water with barely a splash, in spite of how enormous he was, and once he was submerged he was off like an arrow, cutting through the water without disturbing its surface. He was a red blur who passed out of sight almost immediately.

"What do you think of him?" Zelda asked.

"H-h-he's very… boisterous." Paya stepped out of the shadows of the bridge where she'd been watching from just out of Sidon's line of sight. "H-he's definitely the Zora prince, and I think we can trust him, based on the stories told about him." By which she meant accounts of his deeds and attitudes that had been meticulously verified by Sheikah observation, Zelda guessed. "If he says he's going to help us, then he intends to."

"That is good to hear, then. Is he the reigning monarch?"

"No, that would be his father, King Dorephan. I don't think that will be a problem, though; the King has been a friend to the Hyrulean Royal Family for a very long time, and he is supposed to be of generous heart. There shouldn't be any conflict between Prince Sidon's promises and what he can deliver."

Zelda hadn't imagined that it would be a problem; she could not have said why but she trusted Sidon almost instantly. Perhaps it was how open he was about seeking to help his own people. No, that was just what one would expect of any monarch who was worth keeping around; was it that he was willing to seek help outside of his people? Was she just responding to his acknowledgment of his own inability in the face of an obstacle he wasn't prepared to overcome? If so, shouldn't she be wary that perhaps he was simply more willing to throw away the lives of someone other than his own people? But no, if that were the case then probably he could have sought _any_ of the other peoples of Hyrule. Whatever he needed must have been something only a Hylian was qualified for, for whatever reason.

She returned to the here and the now and turned to Paya, fairly sure that Sidon was no longer close enough to look at them without them knowing. "I heard someone scream when you landed. Was there trouble?"

Paya looked away, abashed. "I frightened one of the Zora guards, Torfeau. Neither of us hurt the other. She's a very good fighter, though." Zelda could not have guessed how Paya might have ascertained that; she had an image in her mind of the Zora lashing out with whatever weapon she had been carrying and Paya turning away what would have been a killing blow with her own weapon, or a shield, or even a forearm. More likely Paya had managed to talk her way out of it and had ascertained that Torfeau was very skilled based on the way she held her weapon, or some other metric that would have been utterly inscrutable to Zelda if she had been there. Now that she thought of that, she was lucky that Sidon had not responded violently to being surprised. She had not _thought_ he would be so inclined, but guessing games were a losing proposition in the end. Well, it had turned out well enough. "I warned her that you would be coming, and… and what she would see before you arrived." She held out the Sheikah Slate. "I activated the travel pad as you instructed. You should be able to teleport there."

She took the slate, feeling its weight in her hand. That was good—she had worried that the device being registered to her had meant that Paya might not be able to use it, but it seemed to have worked regardless. "Thank you, Paya. As eager as Sidon was for us to travel to meet him, I think he can still wait long enough for me to progress through the shrine. I will be back as quickly as I can."

She keyed her destination into the map and disappeared into strands of light.

* * *

In the depths of the shrine Zelda threw herself against a Guardian designed to test someone mightier than herself. It did not matter; through iron nerves and fleetness of foot and the careful application of explosives she triumphed, and when she rejoined Paya she was carrying a new sword and a new shield.

Their trip along the road to Zora's Domain was not eventful, in the sense that such a thing _could_ be uneventful; Paya carried a spear, while Zelda carried a sword and shield that did not conduct electricity. They moved quietly, soaked through and unmindful, the rain masking their footsteps as they drew up behind Lizalfos and Bokoblins. They were never spotted, save by keese, and keese did not raise alarms.

The new sword cut as well as the one she had carried before, its glowing blue blade as sharp as any steel one she had ever used. The shield was just as wondrous, a sort of circular emitter that formed a flat disc with no added weight—but of course she had no opportunity to test it.

The road was long, and wet, and quiet, and they spoke little. Divergent paths would split off occasionally, and the languid pace of their journey was punctuated by the quiet minutes Zelda spent walking these lonely trails to find disparate stone monuments that dotted the domain. They were not in perfect order, or else were meant to be viewed by peoples who did not need to walk along these paths, but every time Zelda found a new one she would stand before it for longer than its predecessors, recording the words she found and then standing in contemplation. Paya read, too, but if she recorded the words then it was only in memory, and far more time was spent considering Zelda's expression.

The contents of the monuments—the history of Zora's Domain, of the reservoir, of the ancient princess who had loved a swordsman, on and on—are known. To Zelda they were new things, windows into a past that she wondered if she had been educated on, perspectives on events that had occurred while she slept. She could feel the past there, history guided by the hand of the goddess, as firmly as if it were pressing against her chest and forcing the air from her lungs.

Eventually they came to a steep hill, on which a Moblin stood sentry; once past the Moblin, Zora's Domain spread before them.

* * *

The bridge was a bridge between worlds, crossing an expanse of open air and water, bathed in glowing lights which never dimmed or needed fuel. To cross the bridge was to actively leave the world behind you, to step into the realm of the Zora as surely as crossing into a dream, another life entire. Rising above the city was an enormous fish or whale with its tail raised as if to fan at the sun, and the rest of the domain spread out beneath it like ripples in stacked pools of water. Artisans moved with practiced surety and a newborn urgency to maintain the integrity of the ancient edifices, wending their way up the twisting staircases that lead between different layers of the city. Children ran amuck, shrieking with children's laughter as they raced to the higher levels of the domain and then rode down the channels of flowing water, leaping to solid ground only a level or two before the channels opened into free-flowing waterfalls that pooled in the massive lake above which the city was suspended.

As Paya and Zelda crossed the bridge the domain seemed to spread, an effect caused by their crossing of the walls erected against no threat save for architectural blandness.

"This _feels_ like stepping into a pool," Zelda said. "Isn't it incredible, the way that it draws the eye in so many directions, how the feeling of water is conveyed through stone? The architecture is … it's breath-taking. You could make a lifetime of study out of it!"

"Many of the Zora have." Paya wasn't watching the architecture; her eyes were ever forward, and above, and _everywhere_ , taking in potential points of attack or egress, the tactical examination of a place being so ingrained that it was reflexive. "The domain exists as it does at least in part because of the quality of the minerals it's built out of. The luminous stone glows at night, but it also has specific physical qualities that make it uniquely suited to building in this environment. Its use is why this bridge has such good footing, even in the rain." As she said this she tilted her head, letting thin rivulets of water run more onto her right shoulder than the left. She had swapped into her more casual clothes at the far end of the bridge. "Though I don't imagine they planned for _this_ much."

Zelda adjusted the hood of her tunic; she was soaked through, just as Paya was, and didn't know if she would ever feel dry again, but it had been her suggestion that they change into less confrontational modes of dress. She did have her shirt that Impa had given to her, and it was both sturdy and suited to the occasion of meeting a prince, but she did not want to soil it just yet. The rain really _was_ quite awful.

"I suspect that the needs of the Zora have more than a little to do with the rain." She saw Paya nod out of the corner of her eye and exhaled in satisfaction. Paya was well-versed in the different cultures and peoples of Hyrule, though she had never traveled beyond Kakariko Village, and to have Paya agreeing with her felt like a validation of her own ability to read a situation. That was silly, maybe even petty, but it was also true and she would continue to draw pleasure from it.

They came to the end of the bridge, which terminated in a series of steps that rose up to a flat platform framed at one end by a gate. Walking up the stairs together, they drew the attention of the two Zora guards. Zelda looked at both of them, trying not to stare, realizing she did not have the knowledge necessary to distinguish between masculine and feminine presentation for the aquatic people. She thought perhaps they were both women, but sexual dimorphism was more pronounced among Hylians than any of the other peoples of Hyrule, and she clamped down hard on her instinctive need to assume anything about them.

"Hm?" One guard looked up, voice deep and, to Zelda's ears, masculine. "Hold, travelers. What business do you have in—" He looked from Zelda to Paya and back again, his mouth slightly open.

The other guard looked over and said in a younger, higher voice, "Father? Err, Rivan?"

Rivan waved his free hand at her. "Wait, Dunma." Now he was staring at Zelda alone, and Zelda could see the nerves that had suddenly taken him, the recognition in his eyes. Paya tensed next to her, and without checking she knew her companion's eyes were focused on the crescent head of the Zora spear. "Forgive me, traveler. I know it is raining, and this is not a wholly reasonable request… but I also see that you are already soaked through beneath your hood. Would you pull it back for me, please?" This was not an order; it was a request that stood on the edge of fear of the taboo.

Knowing that she was changing things in ways she did not have the perspective to understand yet, she complied, reaching up and pulling her hood back. The rain fell directly on her hair again, including the meticulous braid that Paya had woven for her. _He cannot know me_ , she thought, as he gasped out loud and fell to one knee.

"Your Grace," he said, eyes locked on her—flitting away only for a moment to stare at his child, who promptly fell into a similar position. "Forgive me. It's… it's been a century. We thought… we all thought that you had…" He swallowed. "I see. Maybe… all of this makes sense now. Please go and speak to the king. His Majesty will wish to know you have arrived."

"Do you know me?" She asked, because it seemed impossible that he should. Did they have portraits of her hanging up somewhere? Had the stories of her been passed down from grandparents to grandchildren, rendered so precisely that they would know her on sight? That she _wasn't_ some descendant of the princess from a hundred years ago?

"I have known you for more than a century, Your Grace. You have no reason to remember me, of course. I was just an urchin then, a childhood friend to the Hylian Champion, and I don't think you ever actually looked at me during your visits here. I saw you, though, if only from a distance; the Hylian princess, so elevated that she could call the Zora princess by her first name. A number of us saw you when you came to ask our lady, Mipha, to be one of your champions, and again when you returned here in the company of Li—the Hylian champion." That name, that practiced familiarity; there was something there beneath his words, an old pain and mourning that ran in more than one direction. "There is no one here who was alive then that will fail to remember you, Your Grace."

Dunma was looking at her now, eyes wide and almost disbelieving, and the rain was falling heavily on the four of them. Paya's nervous energy next to her had given way to something else. Shame?

"Please stand up," she said. "Don't kneel to me." She had to give more than that; she could feel it here, the power of the crown, how the respect paid to her reflected the respect paid to the Zora royalty, and the Zora's love for their royal family ran _deep_. She could not say that her kingdom was gone; it lived on in her person, she could already hear him say. Fine. Half the truth, then. "I am trying to travel in secret and would be better served by your discretion."

Instantly Rivan stood, and after realizing the severity of his posture he visibly relaxed, with effort. Dunma followed suit. "Of course, Your Grace. If that is the case, please keep your hood up until you reach the throne room. I can't guarantee you won't be recognized," and his expression said that in fact he expected she would be recognized almost immediately, "but you stand a better chance the less of you we can see." He paused, visibly wrestled with something he wasn't sure if he wanted to say, made his decision. "Avoid talking to any of the elders, if you can."

"They are more likely to recognize me?" It made sense; those who were adults during her last visit (though how old would they be, now? How long did Zora live?) would probably have more distinct recollection of her.

"No, Your Grace." He looked away, not to see anything in particular but because he could no longer meet her eyes. "There's a… disagreement, among the Zora. Those of us who were young then, the contemporaries of our Princess, the ones who knew Link," he failed to notice his slip, "we understand what happened during the Calamity. No one could have predicted that, much less stopped it. The elders, though, do not see it as we do." He inclined his head to her; this seemed as much as he was willing to say.

"Thank you," Zelda said, because no other words seemed appropriate (and none at all could be sufficient). She and Paya inclined their heads to Rivan and Dunma, and then she pulled her hood back up. They walked past the guards, down the short path to the gate that lead into the city proper, avoiding the gaze of the artisan who was attending to the stonework. She felt the weight of eyes on her, told herself that this was only paranoia and ego, knew on a deeper level that that wasn't true.

They needed no direction; the layout of the domain was almost naturalistic, lines of importance flowing out from the mouth of the enormous fish that formed the crown of the city. If this was the Zora's Domain, laid out like streams of water running over stones, then the source of that dominion must have been the abode of the king. Still, they did not start immediately; the beauty of the place, its insistent concrete _wonder_ , anchored their feet and demanded that they give it more than a moment's attention. They stood for what felt a very long time, the dark of the rain giving the luminous stone an eerie, otherworldly air that it shared with all of the stone around it. A statue stood at the center of the main plaza, depicting a Zora woman (this one she could tell instantly, though she was not sure why) standing in repose with a trident. The light reflecting off of its rain-slick surface gave it a quality very much like life, though that life was cold and hard and unmoving.

As they ascended the wide, gentle staircases that lead to the upper levels of the city, they passed by what seemed like a much older Zora. Zelda knew she was better served by not looking, and more so by not _staring_ , but as they drew near to him Zelda saw that the old Zora was standing beside a bundle of shock arrows, set against a pillar so that their tips were held aloft. As she watched, the Zora touched the electrically-charged arrowheads with a visible and audible crackle of electricity. He winced, pulling his hand back in pain, hissing through his teeth. Then he repeated the process. Again. And again.

After perhaps the eighth time he had apparently had enough, waving his hand back and forth, muttering to himself as he stepped back—and then he noticed them, his head whipping around, sending his cranial fin bouncing. "What are you looking at? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Please excuse me," she said, speaking out of reflex and realizing instantly that this was a mistake. "I did not mean to stare."

The old Zora did not reply; she saw the flash of recognition in his eyes, the moment of disbelief, flitting through possibilities, doubting himself, deciding that he trusted his senses. Then, drawing on a well of feeling she did not understand, she saw rage flare to life in his eyes, icy and sharp.

" _You_." His arrows forgotten he turned toward her, his back straightening so that he reared up to his full height, towering over both of them. "You come back here, now, after everything you did?"

"You should step back." He had started to step toward her; Paya was between them as suddenly as a thunderbolt, staring up at the Zora. She had no weapon in hand, but she would not need one.

His rage was no less severe as he turned his eyes on Paya, who he did not seem to recognize as a person. "Or _what_ , shadow of the royal family? Will I be spirited away to the dark places beneath Kakariko Village, subjected to the tender attentions of their most loyal subjects? What do you think your people could take from me, _assassin_ , that I have not lost ten times over? What pains could match?"

Paya did not make a sound, and she did not flinch; doubtless her face betrayed nothing. Zelda could only see her back, the very mild trembling in her hands.

The elder Zora looked at her again and his expression shifted still more, as if he was remembering something even more terrible than before, and what she saw in him then was grief, grief that had grown old and festered and never been allowed to heal. "You… _you_. You take her away from us, and after." He balled one hand into a fist, held it against his head as if the pressure would preserve the wholeness of his thoughts. "After everything between them… he manages to protect _you_ … but not _her_."

Neither Paya nor Zelda moved; Zelda scarcely breathed. She did not understand. She did not want to.

All at once the Zora seemed to collapse in on himself, his stoop asserting itself against the rigidity of his spine, and he looked so tired as he turned away from them. "Go. Our prince is waiting for you, because he believes that there is something in you worth believing in. So many of them do, because they were children." He reached out with his hand, touched his fingertip against a shock arrow, held it there as electric current arced over and around his flesh. It was a long, terrible second before he drew his hand away from it. "But some of us remember, oh _Princess of Hyrule_. Let the prince believe; in time he will learn as we have. The only thing that Hylians can do, when we need them, is fail."

They did not stay longer; they left him there, nearly fleeing up the stairs, not daring to look back. Zelda pulled her hood closer around her head, willing the shadows to cling to her more tightly, disoriented by the intensity of the Zora's pain and anger. What had she done? How could it have been so terrible that the wounds were still so raw a century after? Paya was shaking next to her, unable to speak, trying desperately not to cry; probably she had never been spoken to that way before. Without thinking, from inside of a haze, she reached out to Paya and rested a hand on her arm.

That touch was enough; the flood gates opened and both of them stood there on the stairs while Paya hid her face in her sleeves and wept as quietly as she was able. They could offer each other no solace, not there, not in that place; Zelda did not even understand what the Zora had said to Paya, only how it had wounded her. Seeing that pain on Paya's face took her own shame and confusion and replaced it with a low heat, a rising anger that she hoped would better serve her in the hours to come. How dare that hateful man wound Paya, who had never hurt anyone, who probably did not _have_ the capacity to hurt anyone.

Paya gathered rainwater in her hands and used it to rinse her face, which Zelda dried with the one handkerchief she had kept inside a waterproofed pocket of her tunic. They returned to the trek.

No one else accosted them on their way to the throne room. The breaching fish became so large that its shape lost meaning, and as they approached its mouth Zelda took note of the guards there. The two drew closer and the guards looked at them, curious, ready to stop them and question them.

She had neither the time nor the energy to speak to them. She pulled her hood down again, let them _really_ see her, tried not to relish the shock in their eyes as they stepped hurriedly out of her way. She and Paya entered the throne room without another word.

The hall was massive, the ceiling a high-reaching arch that felt like it took up every ounce of space inside of the enormous fish, an impression almost like a cathedral. Outside of herself and Paya, only three people were present: an older Zora, bent-backed and green-skinned, whose head resembled a deep-sea ray and who regarded them with mistrust and irritation; Prince Sidon, whose face lit up like the sun as they entered, his smile a beautiful wall of knives; and what could have only been King Dorephan, a king of such prodigious size and obvious power that one might be forgiven for assuming him to be statuary. All of the Zora had small legs in relation to their torsos, compared to Hylians, but for the king the effect was most pronounced of all; his legs were like pillars, or small trees, but his body was that of a whale, his arms of such size and width that she instantly believed the story of him destroying a Guardian with his bare hands. His eyes were deep-set in his face but wide and bright as he looked down at them from his great height.

"Welcome, my friends!" The prince's body language was all energy, all welcoming, all friendship and easy trust. "Thank you so much for coming, and for answering the call of our great need! My lord father, these are the people I told you about. My friends, this is my father, King Dorephan, lord and protector of the Zora."

The king inclined his head to them; not given much to ceremony, then. Looking at Zelda, though, his eyes suddenly brightened, and she felt the impending sting of his recognition, wary of it, of _him_ , after speaking to the old Zora with the arrows. There was no suspicion or anger in the king's eyes, but there _was_ disbelief, as if he were seeing a ghost.

"My eyes must be deceiving me," he said, and his voice was as enormous as his frame, so that even when he spoke softly it filled the hall like a crowd of people. He leaned forward, resting his massive forearms against the supports of his throne. "Can that possibly be you? Have you returned to us, Princess Zelda?" He did not wait for his answer, breaking out into a wide grin not unlike his son's, as Sidon and the older Zora both turned to look at her with identical expressions of shock. "For a hundred years I thought you lost to us after the Calamity, but here you are! And you have not changed at all, it…" He stopped, and she realized she had let her confusion show. "Something is wrong. Do not tell me you don't remember me?"

"I'm afraid that I remember nothing," she said. "Please forgive me, Your Majesty."

" _Dorephan_ ," he said, his voice insistent thunder echoing off the ceiling. "I did not let your mother hold to ceremony with me, and I will not have you do so either."

"Sorry… Dorephan," she said. "When we suffered defeat at the hands of the calamity, I suffered a terrible injury. To recover from it, I was put into a sleep that has lasted until only a few weeks ago—and, as a side effect, I remember almost nothing of my previous life."

" _Ha!_ " The derisive bark came from the side of the throne opposite Sidon, the hunched-over Zora who was regarding her with wide-set eyes full of contempt. "Are we supposed to just listen to this drivel? That she's Zelda I do not deny—anyone with eyes can see her, unchanged, after a hundred years, looking exactly the way she did the day she took Princess Mipha away from us!"

"Muzu," Dorephan said, a warning, not just for propriety.

"No, Your Majesty! I will not stand here and listen to this woman attempt to obviate responsibility for the tragedy that has befallen us! To listen to her in _anything_ is an insult to your people and to the harms they have suffered due to her failures!"

The pressure in the room was too much, the force of the personalities in it like storms vying for position inside a terribly limited space. Sidon's voice exploded, "Muzu, how _dare_ you speak that way to your king and his guests! Do you presume that the hurt you have suffered—that we have _all_ suffered—means that you may heap abuses on the people who would help us? Just as the Divine Beast Vah Ruta turns against us, Zelda returns—and if I'd known that she was _the_ Zelda, I would have carried her and her companion here on my back! They are the salvation our people have been praying for!"

Muzu growled, seeing that he was fighting against tides mightier than himself, and threw his hands up. "This is foolishness, and I will not be part of it! Ask the _princess_ for all the help you want, and I will pray instead that we do not suffer a repeat of the tragedy that befell us a century ago! _Some_ of us will not forget!" And he stormed out, as much as he was able to.

Sidon made a start, as if to go after him, but King Dorephan raised a hand and the prince was still. The room was quiet for the breadth of seconds that it took for the king's enormous diaphragm to expand and remained so for the length of his cavernous sigh.

"I am sorry, Princess. Muzu is speaking out of pain; he was Mipha's personal tutor, and she was very dear to him. Many of the elders here loved Mipha fiercely, and for many of them that love made their wounds more terrible, more likely to fester. It's given rise to something else." He bowed his head in apology, a mountain moving to communicate its sorrows. "Please forgive him, and the others. I fear they will carry that pain until they die, and never stop punishing themselves for not keeping Mipha with them."

How to speak to the numbness she felt? To have hurt someone without knowing that she did so, and then to be confronted with that hurt, blamed for it; to cycle through surprise, and shock, and anger, and then unspeakable shame. It was enough to leave her bereft of any feeling, numb to the touch of words and people and the gentle hand of a friend resting on her shoulder. It was as if she could no longer think, and did not wish to.

But something was alive inside of her, and it pulled apart the most obvious part of this. She looked to the king and the prince, and when she spoke her voice did not crack.

"What of you two, then? Surely your pain is no less sharp?" _Surely your hatred is just as severe_.

Father and son looked at each other, their eyes speaking the secret language that only family share, and then Sidon said slowly, gently: "I do miss my sister terribly, of course. I was only a very small child when I saw her last; I remember her as a presence rather than as a person, and it is only because of the statue in the plaza that I know her face at all. What I feel is very different from what the elders must carry."

"And I," Dorephan said, "miss her far more terribly than do any on the council of elders." These words, said so simply, had all the weight of boulders rolling down a hill, promising to destroy anything that impeded them. "Seggin was her instructor in the spear and thought of her as the daughter he never had. I think his love for her, his devotion to her learning, was so pronounced that it affected his relationship with his son; that is how much he loved her." A long pause, and the stone of his chair groaned beneath him as he dug his fingers into its arms. "But she _is_ my daughter. It is impossible to explain the love a father has for his daughter, how it differs from his love for a son. Still more impossible to explain the pride of a monarch who sees in his child the future of his people, the boundless love each has for the other, and."

He stopped, and did not continue, and Zelda found that she couldn't keep her hands from shaking.

"Forgive me," he said at last. "You mean to ask if I resent you, as the other elders do. I do not. I knew the stories of Ganon as well as any monarch, knew when Mipha agreed to pilot Vah Ruta that it might be the last thing she ever did. I pray every day for her release, but every day I am confronted with my own powerlessness to help her. The biggest different between me and the other elders, Princess, is this: I know that _I_ am the one who failed."

Time was a sticky haze that insisted on clinging to her; Sidon's voice cut through it.

"Forgive us, Zelda. It has been a long day, and my father and I both need our rest." That was not true; Sidon could have swum back to the place she had met him and then returned to this spot three times before needing to stop, but he was trying to be kind. "There is an inn on the main plaza, and I have made arrangements for both of you to rest there. We will meet tomorrow and discuss the problem of Divine Beast Vah Ruta."

It did not register for her that the Divine Beast, the greatest example of ancient technology in the world, was the thing she had been summoned to address. She said her goodbyes, and so did Sidon and the king and Paya, and the two women walked out of the throne room together.

* * *

The inn was warm and dry, and the open walls let in the sound of the rain very clearly. Paya had been hearing it all day, but there was a pronounced difference when listening to it with the smell of hot food in the air and a clean bed waiting for you.

Zelda had been almost wholly listless since leaving the throne room, barely managing to mumble her way through introductions with the couple running the inn, so badly shaken that Paya had stepped in to finish laying out the particulars of what they would need. It was still early enough that they should be able to rise with the sun and be well-rested.

They were brought hot bowls of rich, thick soup, redolent with spices and chunks of hearty salmon. It was a meal to relish, but Paya found herself distracted by watching Zelda, praying she would not have to remind her to finish her food.

Do not think that Paya was unaffected by the events of the day: there was a section of her mind, carefully cordoned off for now, that was in shambles over the encounter with Seggin. Paya loathed violence on a philosophical level, wished terribly for a life that would not require it of her, but at the same time she had never been one to shy away from the history of her people. Seggin's words were a knife taken to the tapestry of her composure, leaving it in tatters, precisely because it was true: the history of Hyrule was written in blood by the hands of the Sheikah, who had done terrible things for the royal family so that it could be denied. That Seggin knew that was not surprising—she recognized him because her grandmother had actually spoken of the Demon Sergeant before, recounting stories of seeing him on the battlefield in the days leading up to the Calamity, and he was known to look outward in service to his king—but that he would use that knowledge against her, as a weapon, was something she could not have imagined. She had never seen evidence of such things occurring in her lifetime; in her secret heart she pretended that all of the bloodier elements of her people had been exorcised when the Yiga Clan broke away from them. Pretending was all it was, though. There was a portion of her that was screaming, screaming as she returned the emptied bowls to the inn-keepers and thanked them for their hospitality, screaming at the bloodstains that were older than her flesh, more indelible than the color of her hair. It would not stop for some time.

So, she kept it locked away for as long as it would need to be quieted. She could come back to it later, when less was needed of her. She prepared for bed, made sure that Zelda was similarly prepared, and not a word passed between them. She prayed that morning would find the princess—because in Paya's heart she was still the princess, as often as she would deny it—in better spirits, and readier to face the challenges of the day.

Zelda was asleep almost as soon as she lay down, her exhaustions both physical and emotional pulling her down into what was probably a dreamless oblivion. Good. That was a mercy.

Paya did not sleep yet; she did not need nearly as much as most people, and more than four hours would leave her feeling sluggish and sore in the spine. She would sit up for a while, partially to keep watch but mostly to organize her thoughts.

Her mind returned, over and over, to the thought of Purah and Zelda sharing perceptions for the study of the Guardian. To Purah and Zelda it had seemed a tool, but to _her_ it sounded like a synthesis of consciousness, an act and state of being of such immense intimacy that it beggared her imagination to do more than gesture at it. Such a thing would be almost like _becoming_ the other person, sharing with them and _of them_ in ways that surpassed the physical or even the emotional. She had told Zelda that there was profundity to the less direct experience, and she believed that to be true, but she had also lied in saying it the way she did. She wanted nothing more than to see the world, and Zelda, and herself, in the way that Zelda could. To share sensation with her. To share _being_. The idea of it sat in her stomach like a ball of hot iron, pressing down, down, and she had to try to force it out of her mind. She could not compartmentalize so many insistent thoughts that effectively. She had to try to exorcise them, somehow.

She knew what had to do; no point in putting it off. She sat on the side of her bed, watching Zelda for long enough to be sure that she was asleep. People who were only pretending often gave subtle signs of it; when Zelda gave none, Paya retrieved her notebook from her pack and began to write. She would need to remove these pages when she presented her findings to her grandmother, but that was fine; she would rebind them later, arranging them with their fellows in proper sequence.

A good diary was worth the effort.


	12. Two Princesses

Muzu had been standing beneath Mipha's statue when Sidon passed him by, staring up at it with an expression that seemed unmoored in time. It was rare to see him so distraught that he would come out and look at her that way; only conflict with the king seemed to affect him so badly, now. In the decades Sidon had spent under Muzu's tutelage he had learned the ins and outs of his instructor's expressions, inscrutable as they might be to anyone else, and in that moment he knew it best to leave him alone.

Muzu was still standing there when Sidon returned in the morning. The sun was newly risen, completely obscured by the dark of the rain clouds above them, the only light on the statue coming from the place where the stone depiction of the Lightscale Trident pierced the surface of carefully sculpted water. He took his place next to Muzu, looking up at his sister's face. She was so serene, rendered in unliving stone, so apart and above from the cares of the living world, infinitely patient, infinitely kind. The statue of Hylia still stood at the foot of the staircase that lead to the throne room, but in many ways his sister had become the patron god of his people, their hope and their grief.

"I am sorry," Muzu said, and Sidon looked down at his teacher, who stared at Mipha rather than at him, "for raising my voice to you and your father." He did not apologize for raising his voice to his king and crown prince; to apologize for impropriety was not in him. He had been ancient when Sidon was born, had taught King Dorephan in the days before he had ascended to the throne, and nobody was sure of his age anymore but estimates placed him at about five hundred summers; he had seen so many royals don the crown that they were all familiar to him, _family_ to him. That he was allowed to behave that way spoke to how much the royal family loved him, in return.

"My father would never begrudge you your honesty," Sidon said, looking up at the statue to match Muzu. "Nor would I. You have been essential to the health and balance of the realm for longer than any living Zora. Your loyalty is beyond reproach."

"But not my fealty," Muzu said. It could have been angry, even accusatory, but it was not; Sidon imagined that some extreme of exhaustion had allowed Muzu to look at himself in a way that the prince did not have the experience or the perspective to understand.

"If I ordered you to assist me, Muzu, I know that you would. _Instantly,_ and without fail, you would! But I do not wish that for you, or for us, or for the Zora people. If I could, I would have each of us work together, single parts of a greater whole, and not because some of us have powers over the others. So, I want you to know this: you are wrong about Hylians. You are wrong about a very great deal. I fear the harm that may befall us if I cannot convince you of the righteousness of my plan and the people who seek to aid us." He looked down at his teacher, and now his teacher looked up at him. "But convince you I will, because I believe in you as surely as I believe in myself. To order you, to insist that you are less than I am… it would wound me, and it would wound what we have between us. I would sooner die."

Muzu blinked up at him, then cut his eyes away. He lowered his head; who could say what he was feeling, then? Shame? Affection? Sidon hoped for affection; if it were shame, then he had hurt his beloved teacher without meaning to.

"You are a good man," Muzu said, as if to answer him. Good! Even with the criticism in that statement, even knowing what was coming after, Sidon was glad. "You are your sister's brother, in every way. If kindness and goodness were the only things a kingdom required of its leader, then you would already be peerless." Now he looked up again, his eyes sharp. "But they are not, and you are not. Not yet."

He nodded, because he could think of nothing else to say to that. Who would imagine themselves an ideal king? Sidon knew of his father's insecurities better than anyone, save only perhaps Muzu. To be a good king required constant self-doubt, self-examination…a measure by which to understand oneself. One needed an idol whose example one might always pursue. He had one.

"I wonder what she would have done, in my place," Sidon said, and the statue loomed above them and Mipha's expression was serene. "I wonder it all the time. Would she have concocted a more elegant solution to the problem of Vah Ruta? Would it have been within her power to tame the beast, even if she were not its Champion? I see you out here, and I think of my father who avoids this plaza because looking at her breaks his heart, and I think of the person he thinks she would be if she were with us, now. I wish that I could ask her what to do."

It felt good to say. It was freeing, to make himself so vulnerable.

"Mipha…" Muzu considered his words, struggling with them. Speaking of her was hard for him, had gotten harder in the intervening century. "She was a wise child, had a wisdom that was more pronounced than experience. You have the charisma of a leader, and people will follow you and love you, but Mipha…" He shrugged. "She always saw clearly what her people needed, even when she was very small. Almost as soon as she could talk, she spoke truth to the crown. And to me."

"She loved him, you know." Muzu looked up at him, baffled, and Sidon realized that, a century on, his teacher had never allowed himself to think of Mipha as she really was. His heart broke for the royal tutor, but he pressed on. "The Hylian Champion. Link."

The old Zora's expression went flat, as if he'd just been slapped. Sidon could see the strength of the old man's convictions easily bouncing this idea away from him, protecting a heart that could not bear the implications. "You can't possibly know that, even if it were true."

Sidon nodded. "Perhaps you are right. I remember a swordsman who spent a great deal of time with my sister, and I remember being angry at him, thinking he would take her away. I would be a fool to trust my memory of so long ago." He let that sink in a moment, a concession to bring Muzu's guard down as far as it would go. "It is not my memory you must trust: it is the king's, and the work of Mipha's own hand." He turned away from the statue, toward Muzu, and set his hands on his waist. "You know the Zora Armor that she made, in which she embedded her own white scale. You never knew who it was for, but my father did; King Dorephan was very happy for her, and dearly wished to bring Link into our family. He wished for himself a son, and for me a brother, and most of all for my sister a husband. That armor was made to fit Link, and no one else, and my father has kept it all of these years on both of their behalves. When you speak to him again, I bid you ask him about it. He will tell you."

Muzu's expression was very much that of someone who was lost and did not know how they had come to be where they were. "But… she never…"

"She never told you," Sidon said, and his voice was gentle even though he knew that no tone would cushion this blow, "because of this. Your prejudices were pronounced even before the Calamity, Muzu, and nobody was more familiar with them than my sister. She thought to marry Link after Ganon was defeated and show all of us how worthy he was to stand at her side. Seggin knew. Dento knew, and taught her to make the armor. My father knew. You did not, because she feared that if you did then you would love her less."

The sound of the rain was loud, then, a background of noise that filled up the whole world as great sheets of water fell on the domain. Muzu could not seem to keep his eyes in one place; he looked at his hands, at his feet, at Sidon, at his hands again, and then lastly up at Mipha, who did not judge him at all. Water ran down Muzu's face, though it was not only water, and it took all of Sidon's strength not to reassure his teacher.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Muzu's voice was barely a croak. "If you seek to wound me with the time and confidence that I lost, then you are succeeding. But if you are trying to convince me that I am wrong about the Hylians because your sister loved one man…"

"I am trying to tell you that you should have faith, Muzu. If not in my ability to judge the character of people, if not in the heart of my sister or in the trust of my father or in the strength of the royal family you helped to raise, then have faith that we seek what is best. Even if you do not agree with us, I am asking you to set that aside and have faith that we will win, in the end."

" _Faith is not enough!_ " Sidon did not flinch; it took a very great deal to make him flinch. That did not make him less surprised at Muzu's outburst, at the anger and pain in those wide-set eyes. "Faith does not protect people, Sidon! You and your father, and even Mipha now, none of you have ever understood that! Faith makes us vulnerable by causing us to set aside our experiences and our common sense. Faith _kills_ us! Faith—"

The steps of two people wearing shoes were just loud enough to be heard over the sound of the rain. Sidon and Muzu both fell silent as Zelda approached, wearing a bright blue tunic over a white blouse and a dark-colored hood to protect her head from the rain. Her friend, Paya, followed behind her, watching Muzu warily. Zelda's eyes were only for Mipha's statue.

"…fails us." Muzu nearly spit these last words upon the ground, and for one terrible moment Sidon feared that he would heap some new abuse upon Zelda. If that happened, he _would_ have to intervene.

The royal advisor was blessedly silent as the princess of a ruined kingdom walked up to the statue, stepping between the two Zora. How much had she heard? Hopefully very little, or nothing. Nothing would probably be better; as much as Sidon liked Zelda, as much as he had instantly trusted her from the very second they had locked eyes, she was still an outsider and that conversation had been deeply personal for so many reasons. He wished that he were better at reading Hylian expressions.

"I am walking through a world of ghosts," Zelda said, looking up at the statue. "I woke up to a world that I've forgotten, but everywhere I go I find echoes of the people and places that I used to know and the expectations they had of me, the ways I knew them and have forgotten. I failed her, and all of you, as I had apparently been failing my entire life, and every memory that returns to me is a new chapter in my failures, an illustration of the ways in which I wounded the world by not being strong enough, or pious enough, or…" She swallowed. "I remember thinking she was so strong."

"She was," Sidon said, his eyes telling Muzu that to speak now would be cruel without reason, and it was with thanks to the old gods that Sidon saw his teacher take the hint. He wanted to say more to Zelda, but what was there to say? To tell her that he was there for her, though she did not know him at all? How egotistical, to assume that his own magnanimity would be enough to put balm on the wounds of a heart he did not understand! Surely no one in the world could be that proud.

But then, what had he but pride, really?

"Zelda," he said, and even though she did not look away from Mipha's statue he knew that she heard him because she flinched at the sound of his voice. "Whatever happened, whatever _will_ happen, you do not have to be defined by ghosts. Even if they inform who you are, you are not among them. You are among the living, and the living will lend you aid." Was that enough? It couldn't be! It wouldn't be, for him. So: "You are not alone."

Her brows drew low as he spoke these last words, and as he watched her eyes took on a very far-away look, her mouth hanging slightly open. Muzu scoffed next to her, finally impatient. Something was wrong, though, she looked like she was about to have some kind of seizure, in a moment's reflex he reached out to her with one hand—

Then the princess tilted her head back and her eyes shone with a golden light.

* * *

Lanayru Road was the safest path remaining in the kingdom, Zelda thought; its proximity to Kakariko Village allowed the Sheikah to monitor it closely and keep roving monsters away from it, while the holy power of the mountain itself _seemed_ responsible for how no beasts spontaneously generated there. One could almost feel the holy energy rolling off of it on the road, exerting the pressure of the gods and keeping the darkness at bay even as Ganon heaved against its shackles.

But, no, that was not true. She could not feel anything. Would she be able to, if she were in touch with her power? Would the leylines that channeled the power of the world have been visible to her, making old mysteries into bare facts? Could _Link_ sense it, as attuned as he was to the sword? That he heard the ancient voice inside of it… did that mean he would hear the gods, too, were they to speak? That line of thinking would break her. She shoved it away, for what she hoped would be the last time.

They six walked as a loose, shifting crowd: Zelda, Link, Daruk, Urbosa, Revali, and Mipha. The group excursion had been Daruk's idea, as so many of these things were; seeking to foster communication and comradery among his fellow champions, he saw every sunny day as a potential picnic. He found an easy ally in Urbosa, who took pleasure in the company of her peers, moving easily through conversations with each of them, knowing how to provoke or console with a word no matter to whom she was speaking. Revali would reliably insist that all of these excursions were a waste of time, but this time, for what should be the final trip and the awakening of Zelda's power, he had accompanied the rest of the group eagerly, in spite of how much of an inconvenience he professed it to be. Mipha was always happy to come; she never complained and always leaped at the chance to spend time with the other champions.

It was easy to get lost in the flow of conversation, to pretend that nothing was wrong because around the Champions she felt secure, felt safe. _All_ of them felt safe with each other, in fact, and they were confident both in this place and in her. Of all the gathered Champions, only Link had bothered to bring a weapon, and though Daruk teased him for it and Revali scoffed at how useful he would be in a fight, Zelda knew that a great deal of their collective security revolved around the sword that would seal the darkness and the hand that could wield it. Link did not share in that security; he was only burdened by it. He had grown up with Mipha, had known Daruk almost as long, was trusted by _all_ of them… but she watched his back as he walked, never speaking to the group, never setting down his role as Champion even among his fellows. His gaze was turned ever outward, watching for danger of any stripe, removed from the warmth of company. He would be like this until fewer eyes were on him, until he felt that he could be vulnerable again. There would be no vulnerability here, even among the dearest of his friends.

It was morose of her to draw strength from that. Cruel, even. Still, she _did_ , and denying it would not fix the problem. Seeing that even the chosen Hero of the Master Sword could buckle under pressure without breaking, could hold the world on his shoulders even as he felt it keenly… that made her feel better. Maybe not stronger, but better.

Next to her, Revali scoffed. "Listen, _Your Highness_." She snapped back to attention, realizing that she had effectively been ignoring him for the past twenty seconds, and did her best to look as if she'd been listening the entire time. "Just because you're operating under assumptions regarding your _own_ importance is no excuse to be… inattentive. There are plenty of people who would give one of their legs to listen to _me_ —"

"—Explain the theory behind your Gale, and how the energy expenditure is much lower than trying to achieve flight through traditional means, even allowing for the greater strain on your shoulders." She smiled at him, the practiced smile that she'd used in court more than once. "Though it calls to mind, Revali, how you intend to teach people the use of the Gale if you won't take on any students."

His whole body shivered slightly as he puffed out his breast-feathers and shook his head. "Well, fine, pretend all you like, but don't come crying to me if it turns out you need someone to carry you away from danger." He moved smoothly away from her, picking up his pace to try to catch up with Link. For all his posturing, she could tell he wasn't really offended: few, if any, were the people more given to moodiness than Revali was, and he sympathized even if he refused to say so.

Behind her Urbosa told some joke that made Daruk roar with laughter, and Zelda was about to slow her pace to try to ask what was so funny (how she hated missing a joke) when Mipha stepped in beside her. The Zora princess had her eyes locked directly ahead of her, but the fact of her presence brought Zelda up short, demanding her attention.

Mipha refused to slow down the group on any of these excursions, which meant that she walked _very_ quickly on her proportionately shorter legs, taking three steps for every two of Zelda's. By the time she reached the end of her current growth spurt she would easily outstrip them all, but for now she put in so much effort to keeping up that Zelda did not want to insult her by slowing her own pace.

"Is something on your mind?" she asked, inviting Mipha to talk partially out of courtesy and partially out of very real, very insistent curiosity.

Mipha looked up at her, and the intensity of those golden eyes contrasted with the softness of the rest of her expression. "Actually, yes. Though the matter is… delicate." Mipha looked off to the south, across the river that ran from the snowfield and whose stream they were walking up. The promenade was across from them, the enormous waterfall there hiding a cavern in which a shrine had recently appeared. "If possible, I would like to speak with you in private." She paused, considered that. "If you do not mind, Princess."

She tried to think of anything about which Mipha could reasonably want to speak with her, starting with the ways in which Zelda could have theoretically offended her. A very different and much more personal anxiety welled up inside of her, and the urgent need to address this was suddenly more insistent than the fact of traveling up Mt. Lanayru.

The path to the promenade split off from Lanayru Road, leading up a winding stone staircase that ended in a bridge spanning the width of the river. They were drawing up to that staircase now. She indicated it with an inclination of her head, and Mipha nodded.

"Link!" At her call the Hero stopped in his tracks, turning on the spot to address her so that Revali walked several paces further before stopping himself. "Mipha and I are going to have a look at the promenade from atop the stairs. Wait for us, please. We won't be very long." Link nodded his assurance, though his posture did not relax at all, and Revali threw up his wings in disgust before going to join Daruk and Urbosa, who were politely keeping up the pretext of their conversation while not-staring at the two princesses as they ascended the stairs together.

The ceremonial dress she wore for this excursion was heavy, and she had to hold up the skirts as she took the steps. Mipha's own steps were slow and careful, so their pace matched easily. They did not speak as they climbed, not even on the wide platforms that connected the disparate flights, and Zelda could feel the tension building. How much of that was only her imagination?

The sun was high when they reached the top of the stairs and stepped out onto the bridge. The wind was blowing, a cool breeze that brought her considerable relief after the climb. The promenade spread out before them, a series of fountains and statues that lent a feeling of antiquity and holiness more pronounced because it had stood for so long without being touched. It was one of the testaments to the piety of her people, their closeness to the gods made manifest.

"Are you all right?"

The question was a shock; it would be useless to try to hide it. "Forgive me. I find my mind wandering, of late." She smiled again, hoping it did not look as strained as it felt. "But yes, I am fine, thank you for asking. My strength has been bolstered by the pilgrimage, I think, and I should have no trouble scaling the mountain." She hoped that was all this was about, and that Mipha would not see that she was dodging the question.

Mipha's expressions were not quite like a Hylian's would be: her brow did not move as theirs did and her eyes were not identically framed. Still, there was something there Zelda recognized as the Zora princess looked up at her. Concern? Sympathy? Gods, let it be anything but pity.

"You have changed very little, Princess."

"I beg your pardon?"

Mipha nodded. "You probably don't remember the first time you visited Zora's Domain with your mother. You could barely walk, but she brought you with her on all of her travels throughout the kingdoms. Even back then you were a very thoughtful child, given to pouring all of your energy into addressing whatever problem was right in front of you." She finally broke eye contact, releasing Zelda from the force of her regard and looking out toward the waterfall. "You were so very happy, then, but every worry you had was like a little storm cloud hanging over your head." She looked at Zelda out of the corner of her eye, and Zelda was reminded of their conversation atop the Veiled Falls. "The clouds have grown wider and darker. Again: are you all right?"

She could not deny being taken aback; she might have expected this out of Urbosa, but never Mipha. They had known each other for many years, but their relationship was almost totally formal; she could count the conversations they'd had in private on the fingers of one hand. They were not on intimate enough terms for her to answer Mipha honestly, so why was she being asked?

 _I am being a fool_ , she said to herself, and it was true. They were… were they friends? Did they know each other that well? They shared a kinship, at least, a shared past and a shared burden and an understanding of themselves. Mipha was also the leader of her people, or would be when she came of age; the Zora had cheered for her as a body when it was announced that she would be Champion. She carried all of their expectations on her back and bore them with a smile meant to reassure them not only of her infinite strength but also of the kindness that lay under and over that strength, that she was worthy not just of their adoration but of their trust.

Zelda looked to the east, where the mountain loomed. It dominated the horizon, cold and impassive, holding all the potential in the universe, for herself and for her purpose.

"I fear that I am going to fail," she said. This was the first time she had ever said those words out loud; she had never even said this to Link, fearing to burden him with the final and most horrible picture of her weakness. Mipha did not respond, so she continued, "I fear that all of this will be for nothing, and that if Ganon— _when_ Ganon returns, we will not be able to stop it. I have nightmares of the battle being won, of the five of you triumphant over the forces of darkness, and then… nothing happening. My power lies dormant, and Ganon cannot be sealed, and all the force in the world is not enough to bury it. I am afraid that." She stopped, composed herself. She was not going to cry in front of Mipha, was not going to cry and then have to go down and face the other champions with evidence of her fear on her face, unable to even _breathe_ properly because every time she cried her sinuses got inflamed and she would _not_. She held it back, and it was an entire ocean behind a door that she could only brace with her hands, but she would hold it. "I am afraid that when all is said and done, the only thing I will have done for the world is fail it, fail all of you, and because of my weakness all your courage will come to nothing."

Mipha's footsteps were very soft as she stepped beside Zelda again. "That is a terrible thing to carry by yourself."

"Yes." It was all she could manage.

"It is even worse," Mipha continued, "when the people around you tell you that it will be all right. That they believe in you anyway. That there's always another chance." Zelda could not read her face, or her tone, or the way she stared into the distance. How could she speak to that pain and still smile? How could she sound so _kind_? "You feel the weight of lives in your hands, and you see shades of red standing on your skin where their blood might be if you cannot perform your duties, cannot do what is expected of you. You realize that the whole world is using you as the hub on which it turns, and you are so fragile, and you know that if too much pressure is applied then you will break. You see other people broken, people you _love_ , and you see that it is your fault that they are hurt, and they smile and tell you that they love you and that of course it will be all right. Because they believe."

She could not hold shut the door. "Yes."

Mipha turned to her, reached for her hand, took it gently in both of hers. Her palms were warm to the touch, rather than the coolness that one might expect. She was still smiling her small, sad smile.

"Perhaps you will fail," Mipha said, and there was no judgment in it. "All the people you hoped to protect will still need you when you come down the mountain. You cannot change that, and neither can anyone else. You will have to bear the burden of their belief in you, even if you fail. You will have to keep fighting, even as the world ends. We will keep fighting with you."

She closed her eyes as if that could hide her shame. "I do not doubt that you will."

"I made my oath to you with the other Champions, but oaths can be just another weight that we lay on the people we make them to." Her palm was suddenly against the open air. A soft, warm hand pressed against her cheek, and Zelda opened her eyes. Warmth and comfort radiated from Mipha's touch, a light that filled the dark places in her thoughts, and that same feeling was reflected in her expression. "So, I will make no more promises to you, but… I hope you know this. _If_ you fail, and it seems like everything is crumbling, and the burden is so much that it threatens to crush you beneath it, and you cannot show your weakness to any of the people you love most, not even for a moment..." She let go of Zelda's hand, and now both of her palms were pressed against Zelda's temples, and the power of her healing magic took away the pressure inside of Zelda's head, made the ocean feel smaller. "If it comes to that… I am here. If you want to talk, I will listen. If you want to listen, I will talk."

The light faded, Mipha's healing magic receding as she drew her hands away, and Zelda breathed. The anxiety was still there, that sense of the future was a heavy thing lurking on the outside of her thoughts… but there was something else, too. A warmth and buoyancy, which insisted that she would not drown. Is this what everyone felt like when Mipha used her magic on them? It was no wonder so many people went to her for their hurts.

At last she was calm. Mipha was still smiling up at her. That smile was still sad, but there was something else, too. She did not know what it was, but it made her feel… safer. "Thank you, Mipha."

Mipha inclined her head. "We all carry the weights of our people, Princess. No one's burden is as heavy as yours, but if the world gets darker, I hope you will remember this: I will be here for you. You are not alone."

* * *

Who could have ever imagined such a thing? Certainly not Sidon; his imagination was not up to the task of painting the picture of a princess, wearing the colors of the Champions of a hundred years ago, engulfed in a golden light that suffused every inch of her body as if the sun was dawning beneath her skin. It was a radiance so intense that the world around it was dark, and yet so gentle that there was no need to shield his eyes—though he did not think he _could_ have, much less would have. What he was seeing now was proof of something important, an essential piece in the puzzle that would set the world right! Oh, to be _him_ , to be witness to these amazing things, to be present for the making of history! _Ah, Mipha, if only you could see your little brother now!_

Zelda had been staring at nothing as the light welled up inside of her; all around them Zora were beginning to gather, running or swimming to see the light that now stood in the plaza, gathering in a quiet hush to see the source of the radiance that stood between their prince and his advisor. Muzu, for his part, was gawking openly, all words having failed him. Zelda's attendant stood beyond, eyes turned to the sky. The Zora watched Zelda as a body, as a people, and as Sidon threw a glance at the heart of the city he saw his father's enormous silhouette standing in the doorway of the throne room.

Tears ran down Zelda's cheeks like rivers of molten gold, and he barely had time to register it before she snapped back to herself with a gasp. She blinked rapidly, raised a finger to her eyes, felt the wetness there, and then seemed to remember where she was, whose statue she was standing under.

"She said…" Zelda swallowed, and he could see that she swallowed the very fact of her sorrows. What had happened? "I remember, now. She said that she would be there for me."

In that moment Sidon knew Zelda, knew her face and the things she was no longer trying to hide. If standing beneath Mipha's statue had restored some portion of her memory, then it had also restored some element of her self-awareness, and that was truly raw and sore. He could see her as she turned her attention inward, as if trying to restrain herself.

Every Zora knew the story of the Champions, whether they had been born in that time or not. They knew the story of the Princess of Hyrule, too, who had fought the Calamity with her hands, wielding the power of the gods, and been struck down. That she was alive and in front of him was a fact beyond doubt; that she carried scars that were more than bodily was written all over her face. To have been defeated by such terrible evil, and to have lost so much… His own sorrows seemed so small, compared to the weight of the air around her and the terrible, beautiful light that burned within her.

Then she set her jaw, and clenched her fist, and turned her eyes to him, and he felt his pulse quicken at the … he could not have said, only that he feared his heart would leap out of his chest. She looked up at him in all earnestness, as if seeing him for the first time, and said, "Now I must be there for her."

The thrill that ran through him was like nothing he had ever experienced before. He nodded.

She turned away from him, toward Muzu, and the light was still in her and Sidon saw his teacher's face as he confronted a being more radiant than the Sun. He saw his father's advisor quail—but only for a moment. Then something woke up in the old Zora, too, and he straightened his back, forcing himself to stand straight as he locked eyes with the incarnation of the goddess.

"Muzu," Zelda said, and now her voice came from _everywhere_ , echoing off of the stone and sky and the water. "I see the pain in your heart, and the hatred that is growing out of it like a weed taking root. I am the gardener who has planted so many of your hurts, and for that I can never make amends." Muzu did not flinch, but Sidon could see the tears standing there in his eyes. _This_ he could not comprehend; what was his teacher thinking? How could one respond to the regard of someone who could see one's soul? "Please understand this: one hundred years ago, I failed to defeat the Calamity. Ever since then, the Hero has been fighting it at the heart of Hyrule Castle, holding it at bay by an art I do not understand. But, Muzu, the Hero is _losing_. Inch by inch his strength is fading, and when he falters Ganon will walk this land freely, and the catastrophe of a hundred years ago will be as nothing compared to the devastation it will wreak." She held up hands filled with stars. "I do not have the strength to fight the Calamity alone. I need the Champions. I need _Mipha_. And I need to make right the things I let go wrong, all those years ago."

The light went out like a candle being snuffed, and the goddess was gone. In her place stood a young woman, hands folded in front of her.

"I _must_ save Mipha. Even if she cannot help me, even if… even if it amounts to nothing else, I _must_ help her. She was good to me, and I cannot leave her trapped in the Divine Beast. But I can't do it alone." She held up her hands again, now only the pale hands of a Hylian girl. "If I use too much of my power then the Calamity will attempt to kill me like it did a hundred years ago, and everything around me will be obliterated. I have to rely on others, because this is beyond my strength to do alone. Please help me." She bowed low in the Sheikah style, her form imperfect but her meaning clear. "Please help me save her."

The Plaza was very quiet, in the rain. Sidon watched as Muzu looked out at the gathered people of the domain, as the rain fell indifferently on the girl who was a goddess reborn.

"My Prince," Muzu said at last, "I think we had better explain to our guests what is happening."

* * *

The most obvious indicator of the shifting relationship between Zelda and the Zora Council of Elders was their presence, all standing in a ring on the floor of the king's throne room as their prince explained their battle strategy to her. Before they would have jeered her, maybe even discounted her observations simply because of who she was; after seeing her in the plaza, holding as much of the power as she could while not revealing herself to Ganon, they were quieter, more thoughtful. She could not guess at what they were thinking ( _though I could see, if I really wanted_ ) but they were not trying to heap new abuses on her, and that would have to be enough for now.

The schematics laid out in front of her were very detailed while also being imprecise: the parchment was remarkably well-preserved, considering it was over a century old and kept in an environment as humid as Zora's Domain, and every inch of it was covered in careful diagrams detailing the different systems that constituted the Divine Beast Vah Ruta, with notes written in both handwriting that she recognized as her own and in a much messier, denser script that she guessed was Purah's.

"One of the powers of the Divine Beast," King Dorephan said from his throne, "is to produce an endless stream of clean water." That _probably_ wasn't true; to introduce more water into the cycle would create unimaginable ecological imbalances in the long term. More likely it was drawing water from the environment, or possibly somewhere further away—would she be able to find documentation regarding desertification of any areas of Hyrule in the past hundred years? "This is a boon to our people, but now we are faced with a new and terrible application: East Reservoir Lake is full to bursting."

"Full to bursting?" She looked up at Dorephan, then Sidon. "Wouldn't it simply overflow?"

The king's sigh was long and loud. "I am afraid not. East Reservoir Lake is very deep, but it is not designed to be able to hold the volume of water that Ruta is pouring into it. It was built to regulate the once-a-decade floodwaters of Zora River, letting the water flow in an even stream over the course of years."

"Our engineers estimate that East Reservoir Lake is currently holding _six times_ the flood water that falls in a given decade." Muzu grimaced from across the room; he was trying his best but talking about the weaknesses of his people to an outsider still rankled him. "We have run out of emergency reservoirs to channel the overflow into, and the river's current is already at its maximum capacity short of a full flood. If this goes on for much longer, then even if Vah Ruta stops of its own accord then the next time the flood rains fall, the reservoir will burst. The amount of water released…"

Zelda nodded. "Would be tectonically significant." Never mind the resulting flood, though that would destroy Hyrule as surely as Ganon itself; that much pressure moving across the earth all at once would cause earthquakes that would reach beyond the bounds of the kingdom. It might trigger a full eruption of Death Mountain, or worse. There was literally no way to know how bad it would get, but all life in Hyrule would effectively come to an end.

Sidon tapped one finger on a note she had made a century ago, next to the schematic for Vah Ruta's shoulder. "When studying Vah Ruta, you theorized that these orbs at the top of each of its limbs acted as regulators for the flow of water, and that they were controlled by electricity. Seggin," he nodded to the old sergeant, who inclined his head to Zelda, "who is able to resist the effects of shock arrows better than most Zora, managed to shoot one of the orbs. The flow of water _did_ slow, though it returned to its original rate within a few hours."

"If I were a few decades younger," Seggin said, "I could have taken care of this myself." It was an apology, as near as Zelda could tell. She ignored him.

"These notes have some of the basic principles down, but they were written with an incomplete understanding of how the Divine Beasts worked." She was fairly sure that made Sidon gawk at her, but she ignored that too, instead tapping on the four orbs as the diagram laid them out. " _Principally_ , the Divine Beasts appear to be similar to Guardians on a much larger scale. Instead of regulating the flow of water, these power conduits likely regulate all the major functions of Vah Ruta." In the distant past they had probably been armored; she was glad that they were not, now. "If we can manage to overload all of them then Vah Ruta should be forced into shutdown, at least long enough for us to board it."

"Four shock arrows," Sidon said, cupping his chin with his hand. "Well, no. Four true shots with shock arrows. None of the Zora besides Seggin and Bazz can handle even _one_ shock arrow, and firing one would render both of them immobile afterward. No matter how you look at it, that leaves very little margin for error!"

"I estimate you will need at least twenty." Muzu stepped closer to the table, and Paya moved to stand closer to Zelda. If he noticed, he pretended not to, though he turned his eyes on the both of them. "It would be easiest if the two of you could work out a battle strategy between yourselves, since you have the sealing power of the royal family, _and_ the Sheikah Slate, _and_ the ability to carry shock arrows, but before we consider any of that we need the arrows themselves."

"Muzu has been searching for a source," Sidon said. "And I would bet you've known one for quite a bit."

Muzu inclined his head. "Yes, my prince. The _easiest_ method of obtaining shock arrows would be trading with the Gerudo, but that would take time that I do not believe we have. The most _accessible_ shock arrows…" He turned away from the table, pointed out and upward. "Directly east of here is Ploymus Mountain, whose peak hangs over the reservoir. At its summit you will find all the arrows you need."

Sidon hissed a breath in through his teeth. "Ploymus Mountain, where a lynel is reported to have established its territory." Muzu's only response was to nod.

Zelda looked to Paya. She did not remember the lynel that had attacked the two of them, but Paya did; she had a better understanding of the danger that they represented. The two of them had fought Guardians and Hinoxes, Moblins and Bokoblins and Lizalfos, and had through skill and the exploitation of weaknesses managed to triumph over each of them.

Paya had told her that a lynel was like none of those things, intelligent and skilled and brutal and powerful in a way that other monsters only aspired to. They did not really have weaknesses, were almost impossible to sneak up on, and could crush a Hylian in a single blow of their weapons. These things were all true, and she could see that truth written on Paya's face.

"We don't have many choices," Zelda said. Paya nodded, though she was desperately unhappy.

"The lynel will be fighting with the shock arrows." Paya's inflection was remarkably upbeat, considering the circumstances. Which meant it was still very grave. "It would be much too dangerous for anyone but us to try to take them away from it. And we don't _have_ to kill it to get what we need, necessarily."

Zelda nodded. Both of them understood that it would be better if they did. How they would manage that… well.

"We will prepare for facing Vah Ruta while you retrieve the shock arrows," Sidon said through his grin. "Leave all of that to me. I will make sure that, on your return, we will be ready to support you! Dento!" He turned to one of the elder Zora, who stood at attention. "Do you have what you need?"

The eye that the old Zora turned toward Zelda and Paya was quick, analytical, and seemed to take the full measure of them at a glance. She could see him crunching numbers in his head, his expression actually not very far removed from Purah's. "Yes, my prince. I can get something out of storage for them, adjust it and restore it. It will be the work of only a few hours."

"Then it is settled." Every eye in the room returned to the king, who did not share his son's smile; he had the look of a ruler who was sending others to do work that he wished he could partake in himself. "Zelda. Paya. Once you retrieve the shock arrows, return here and we will outline the rest of the battle plan. You have our thanks for undertaking this terrible task on our behalf, and you may trust that we will be with you in every way that we can." He hesitated, clearly having intended to end his speech there but then thinking better of it. "Please be careful, both of you. All of us would see you back safely."

There was a moment where Zelda took in the room around her, all the faces of these people, a few of whom had believed and many of whom only believed because she carried the power of the goddess. _Does that matter? Is it enough that they believe? The king wishes for your safety, and I think it is not just for the sake of his people._ She did not know what to do with that. It made her think of Mipha.

"Thank you, Dorephan," she said, and she and Paya both bowed low before turning and walking out of the throne room together. It would be a long walk up the mountain, and it was best that they get started now.

* * *

Two hours after Zelda and Paya had left the throne room, Sidon was doing the work of coordinating the eventual attack on the Divine Beast. Attack it would have to be; Vah Ruta had grown increasingly more aggressive ever since it had initiated the rain, and by now its behavior would be almost impossible to predict. The idea that his sister's beast, which he knew she had loved very much, should be a thing that they would attack like a bokoblin… it didn't sit well with him.

But to be part of that! To be part of the force that would launch themselves against a power as old as the domain itself, to protect not just the Zora but _all_ of Hyrule! To have the opportunity to even _attempt_ such a thing, it… it was almost enough to make his stomach stop twisting into knots. Vah Ruta, should it turn its wrath on them, would be almost incalculably dangerous. Even the lynel would—

 _The lynel_.

"Muzu," he said, over the sound of the retreating footsteps of the messenger he had sent to check on Dento's progress. His family's advisor turned away from a ledger and faced him, and both of them stood in the shadow of the king, who watched them in silence. "What evidence was it that suggested that the lynel had appeared on Ploymus? A hoof? Its horn?" _Its fur?_

"It would take more firm sighting than mere pieces or leavings before I reported it. I am confident that it is there," Muzu said. "Though they did not find _evidence_ , exactly. Laflat traveled to Shatterback Point to survey the area and saw the lynel with her own eyes. That she managed to escape is a small miracle, I suppose."

The king stood, the water at the base of his throne rising only to his knees. "Did she notice the color of the lynel's coat and mane?" There, the question Sidon had wanted to ask for himself.

The advisor nodded. "Yes. She said its face was dark, and its pelt dark with white stripes. The mane was all white, and—"

Sidon did not hear him, paid no heed to his father calling out to him. He was running with all the strength in his body, cursing himself for not thinking of this detail. The guards practically dove out of his way as he charged past them, and people gawked as he leaped down to the main plaza. He hit the stone running, footsteps sure in the rain. He had to hurry. If he took the waterfalls, he might be able to catch them before they reached the summit.

 _I need my spear_.


	13. Ploymus Mountain

The delineation between day and night had disappeared, for all practical purposes. The rain fell heavy and constant from a screen of clouds that defied the sun and shamed the stars, making a curse of a blessing, and if one listened then even from the heart of the domain one could almost hear the reservoir strain against the weight of the torrential bounty. The princess of Hyrule, heir to a crown long gone and a kingdom effectively lost, could hear stone begin to buckle. She tried to tell herself that this was her imagination, on some level she knew that that was true, but the fact of the knowledge was very different from the kind of emotional surety she sought for herself. Vah Ruta was there, seated in the center of the reservoir, its body hidden from sight while its power poured its presence across the nation of the Zora.

Zelda had said before that she walked through a world of ghosts, and that was true; more than that, though, she walked through a world where the hours were her true enemy. Every step she took was accompanied by a new layer to the essential awareness that time was running out, that there was a fundamental driving force that would not let her truly rest. She could take time with reaching Ganon, she thought (or prayed); Vah Ruta would not wait that long. How many days had this rain been falling, a rain that would have flooded the lowlands and stripped it free of habitation and Hylian life a century of centuries before? How many more days could they afford? She should have asked. It didn't matter; she would work as quickly as possible. But not knowing meant that she felt the hour drawing near, every moment the tolling of a bell. When was midnight? She knew not.

They left traveling east, toward the reservoir and the mountain. Looking at the Sheikah Slate, its topographical information did not seem to indicate the best point of egress for the mountain; on every side it was surrounded by tall cliffs, the lowest being of a height that would have pushed her stamina to the utmost in the climbing even without the rain. But they had agreed to go, and go they would, even if that meant that they would not know how to proceed.

Zora's Domain had three bridges, each guarded differently; the one from which they had entered was to the south, the main bridge, the bridge that connected the domain to the roads used by travelers. The bridge they took now, to the east, was a mirror of the bridge to the west, smaller and less majestic, but not lacking in equivalent elegance. This bridge lead to the foot of Ploymus Mountain and that, to the best of her reckoning, did not connect directly to any other major territories. It was naturally defended on all sides, and unless she guessed incorrectly that would mean that there was very little reason to post guards, here.

"Zelda," Paya tapped her on the shoulder, snapping her out of her reverie. "There is a guard ahead of us. We could… ask her for directions?"

The princess (ah, she was beginning to think of herself that way without realizing it, and some part of her would mourn at the change while another part of her would be nothing but satisfied, even relieved) looked ahead, took note of the Zora standing at the edge of the bridge, back to the domain. She was tall and pale in coloring, and something about her communicated strength in a way that Zelda could not put her finger on. She wore the armor common to the guards of Zora's Domain, and in her hand she carried the long, hooked spear that was apparently standard issue.

"Yes, I think we should. I had thought that the map could provide me with the necessary directions, but I have to admit that I'm utterly at a loss. Better to admit our ignorance than to be well and truly lost, I suppose." This answer satisfied her companion, who resumed walking in silence.

The Zora turned and saw them coming and stood waiting for them as they approached. She raised a hand in greeting, and they did the same as she spoke in a gravelly voice, "Hello, there. Didn't expect the war council to have dismissed so quickly. I hope you're not headed out to see the Divine Beast."

"We are not, though I suspect we will need to see it sooner or later. I am Zelda, and this is Paya; we aim to scale Ploymus Mountain and retrieve Shock Arrows from its peak."

"Gaddison." That barest of introductions out of the way, Gaddison seemed to process what she had actually said. "There's a lynel up there. Even if you can…" She raised her fist, coughed into it as she caught herself; it was obvious that she had seen what happened in the plaza, though her view hadn't been close enough to be absolutely sure. "They're dangerous beasts. Are you sure you want to make that trek by yourselves?"

She looked back at Paya, who took the prompt. "We are hoping that we may be able to retrieve the shock arrows without provoking it. If not… we'll deal with the beast as best as we are able." Her wince told the story: how that would look was up in the air, and there was no small chance that Zelda would need to draw on the well of her strength to make it work. "The most pressing concern is that we're not sure how to approach the mountain. We have a map, and it seems to indicate that there are no real foot paths to reach it from the domain."

Gaddison quirked a smile. "Well, that stands to reason. Zora use the falls to travel up the mountain when we need to. To _walk_ up it, you'd have to approach it from the northeast, which would require crossing the reservoir, and right now that's impossible."

"Impossible is a heavy word," Zelda said, though it was more _irresponsible_ from her perspective.

"Heavy but appropriate." Gaddison turned, pointed at the wall of the reservoir. "Ever since it started to pour water out into the atmosphere in such huge quantities, Vah Ruta has grown more and more aggressive with every passing day. Early on it did not react at all to our presence as we investigated it; by the time Seggin and Prince Sidon approached it, it had begun to attack anyone who swam in the water by hurling blocks of ice at them. Since then it's only gotten more and more aggressive; by now, any _Zora_ trying to swim across would be risking their lives." Her expression as she looked at the two of them was neutral, in a soldier's way. "For a Hylian, it would be very close to killing yourself."

"Well, we have no intention of doing _that_ , at least. Is there no other way to scale the mountain?"

"Not by foot. There are a series of waterfalls that feed into the lakes Mikau and Lulu, but only Zora can swim up them. If you had Zora armor, that would be a different matter, but… hm." Gaddison rested the butt of her spear on the ground and stroked her chin with her other hand, looking to the waterfalls in the distance. "I wonder. You're going up to get the shock arrows… to try to stop Vah Ruta, yes?" She didn't even look to see them confirm it. "If that's the case… I'm not as strong as Prince Sidon is, but maybe, if I could find someone to stand in my place…"

"Gaddison." Zelda jumped at the voice, and so did Gaddison, but Paya had no reaction at all. Seggin had followed them across the bridge, bent and scowling and as hateful-looking as ever, but now he was ignoring the two of them to address the guard. "Do you intend to leave your post?"

"Only if I can find someone to relieve me, Sergeant."

Seggin tutted loudly, shaking his head. "To think that this is what we've been reduced to: a ferry service for Hylians." He did not sneer at the two of them, which was… _some_ level of improvement. "I'm not actually a Sergeant anymore, Gaddison. Haven't been one for almost forty years. Still." He held out his hand, palm up, fingers splayed. "I think I can defend this side of the bridge from a few foxes or wandering deer while you do what needs to be done."

The hierarchy of the Zora military did not make immediate sense to Zelda, though Paya observed this exchange with a kind of stoic, observant quiet that suggested she was more familiar with the entire structure. Gaddison clenched her spear tightly for a moment, her eyes on the old soldier's open hand, and then passed her weapon to him. "Be careful with it." It was not clear if she meant the spear or her post. "If anything happens, I'll be the one explaining things to Prince Sidon."

"Feh. If our prince has anything to say about it, I'll remind him who taught him to _use_ a spear. That boy's needed a remedial lesson in humility since he finished growing." He took the spear from Gaddison, and as he took it one could see the comfort and ease with which he turned it, how quickly he found its balance, holding it in two fingers with the kind of gentle, familiar caress that one would expect to see in someone holding their partner. He struck the butt on the ground, as if to get a feel for the sturdiness of the construction, and laughed. "Dento's work is still competent, at least. Yes, I'll hold things here. The three of you hurry up. The Domain's depending on you."

"Thank you, Sergeant." Gaddison saluted, throwing one arm across her chest, before turning away and gesturing for Zelda and Paya to follow. "Come on. I'll show you the way up."

"You two," Seggin said, and it was an effort to not simply ignore him. They waited as he straightened his back, taking on the posture of a guard returning to his duties. When he looked at them, his expression was impossible to read: not exactly malice or disdain but _something_ , some cousin derived from those two things, was written all over his face. "Our prince and our king have placed their trust in you for the second time. You will not have that from me, or any of the elders. We will support you however we can, but if you want our approval then you are going to have to succeed."

"Will we?" Zelda pulled her hood back, just to look Seggin clear in the face, and stalked directly up to him. "I own all of my failures, Seggin, because there is no one else who I can give them to. I will do everything I can to make things right, regardless of whether or not you _trust_ in me. You only have to understand this: I'm doing all of this because it's _necessary_ , because it is _moral_ , because somebody _has_ to." She shoved her index finger directly into his face, close enough that he actually had to lean back to keep from touching her, even as tall as he was. "I will assist your people in every way I can, but you, and all the rest of you short-sighted, hateful relics on the Council, you can keep your approval and _choke on it_. Do we understand each other?"

To her immense satisfaction, he swallowed. "Perfectly."

She gave him nothing else, turning away and pulling her hood up against the rain. "Come along, Paya. We have devoted more than enough time speaking to this man." She put her shoulders back and marched into the lowlands on the other side of the bridge. She could feel Gaddison gawking at her from further up the path and heard Paya's footsteps beating a quick rhythm to catch up with her once the shock had passed.

* * *

The world was all pressure and cold, a roaring sound filling her ears until there was no room in her head for anything else. She held on desperately, all the strength in her body focused into the arms looped around Gaddison's shoulders, and some remote part of her mind considered calling on the goddess's strength just to shore up her grip. _It will be fine it will be fine it will be fine_ , she chanted in her mind as they ascended, the Zora's body undulating under her with a speed and power that she could barely comprehend, she _would_ be fine but she could feel the water pulling at her, she couldn't _breathe_ she had only to hold her breath but the _pressure_ was there. She knew that if Gaddison were to turn her head, if there was even a moment where the streamlining effect of the Zora's cranial fin was no longer protecting Zelda's face, then the force of the water would rip her off of Gaddison's back, maybe break her neck in the bargain. She didn't know how long they'd been climbing; the passage of time felt like a remote, almost impossible thing.

The noise receded, and the air was warm and the rain was falling on her as Gaddison arced, and she let go and pulled out her paraglider, the force of her midair stop sending a shock from her shoulders all the way down into her diaphragm. She descended slowly, regaining her bearings.

Gaddison had landed on the grass and immediately collapsed. She managed to push herself up onto her knees but was panting heavily, the gills at her sides flexing unconsciously as they tried to pull oxygen to make up for what her lungs could not do. As Zelda landed, Gaddison gave her a thumbs-up. Paya, soaked to the bone and on Gaddison's other side, was digging into their pack.

"Perhaps it would be best for us to take a break," the princess said to the guard.

"Can still… swim." She swallowed, gasped again. "Two down. Only one more. Smallest one, too."

"I agree with Zelda." The sheikah woman pulled out a few slivers of roasted mushroom. "However, you are right that time is of the essence." She held the mushrooms out to Gaddison, who regarded them with an expression that could only be produced by a mixture of wariness and extreme exertion. "I don't know if these will work as well for you as they do for the two of us, but you should get some of your strength back if you eat them."

To the light-skinned Zora's credit she did not wince as she took them, though she did allow herself a quiet "hate mushrooms" before biting into them. Her expression made it plain she did not like them; then, apparently deciding that there was no point in drawing out the act of eating them, she opened wide to eat them all at once. The split of her mouth spread out across her entire face, and one could see _all_ of her teeth as she bit down on the lot of mushrooms simultaneously. "Excuse me," she said, and then quietly chewed in a very hurried, business-like way, as Zelda tried very hard to reconcile how different Zora appeared when they were eating. How big was _Sidon_ 's mouth?

The cliff shelf between Lake Lulu and the falls that fed down into Lake Mikau was wide and stony and covered in grass. If the sun had been out then it would have probably been lovely, a perfect place for a picnic or something similar; as it was now, with the luminous stones throwing their pale blue light on the world around them and the rain falling in heavy sheets, its effect was rather more melancholy. Not in a _wholly_ bad way, of course: there was a great deal to admire in the interplay between light and water, how the droplets became blazing comets when they fell around the enormous outcroppings of the stone higher up Ploymus. The place had its natural beauty, and more than its own share, but it would be nice to see the sun again when it came out. _When Vah Ruta is calmed_.

She had yet to see Vah Ruta, still; she had some idea of what to expect, based on the diagrams drawn by the her of a hundred years ago (though how much of that was Purah's work, who could say), but the reality of it would inevitably surprise her. The Guardians had done that enough, and in their case the only transition had been from the ones that were stationary to the ones that were still mobile; going from a drawing of one of the Divine Beasts to an actual view of the genuine article was probably orders of magnitude more different than that.

"Disgusting." Gaddison wiped her fingertips on the grass, and her mouth with the back of her hand. "But I think they're working. I already feel a lot better." Standing, she inclined her head to Paya before looking to Zelda. "Thank you for the mushrooms. Shall we get going?"

"Are you sure you do not want to rest?"

"Better to keep moving even while resting. Less likely to cramp, that way." She gestured with her hand as she walked toward the last waterfall. "Come on. By the time we get there I should be able to take you up the rest of the way." She did not wait for them; they followed her, easily able to keep pace with her shorter gait.

"I do not believe we've thanked you, yet." Zelda had been too angry at Seggin to say much of anything on the way to the first set of waterfalls, and the fact of swimming _up one_ had managed to drive everything else from her mind, even the very foundational propriety that was so deeply ingrained that it superseded her amnesia. "You are putting in a heroic effort toward helping us ascend; we could not do this without you."

Gaddison kept her gaze locked straight ahead, never shifted her posture, so for the long moment she spent walking in silence it was as if she did not hear over the rain and the roar of the waterfalls. Then, "Do not thank me. This is something that any of us would be proud to do. I'm not even the best person to do this on your behalf; Prince Sidon would be. But when I saw you walking down that bridge toward me, after seeing the light in the plaza." Now her eyes found Zelda's, and they were curious and slightly shy. "Was that you, who made it look like dawn had finally come?"

She nodded. What else was there to do?

"I thought it was. When I saw you coming I thought of that light, and how I heard you speaking even from the other end of the domain, as if the gods were talking through your mouth, and I… wanted to be part of it. Of this. Of what you're doing." Eyes forward again, though now she was rubbing her hands together, as if suddenly unsure of what to do with them. "Can you imagine? A guardian of the realm who jumps at the opportunity to shirk her duty and go on an adventure. But I don't even want to be on the adventure, that feels like blasphemy. I just want to help. When your story is written into the history books, when people read of you ten thousand years from now, I don't want to be the person you passed on your way to some important work. I want to be the person who carried you up waterfalls and saw you safely on your way."

"Gaddison of the Waterfalls," Zelda mused, and found that Zora could flush too. "It is auspicious-sounding, I think."

Their guide said nothing, though her smile told a different story as they approached the veil of the last waterfall.

* * *

They left Gaddison behind at the top of the waterfall; they were profuse and genuine in their thanks, because the trip would have been genuinely impossible without her and she had saved them both days of travel and deep embarrassment, but she was in poor condition to receive their gratitude. She had waved them away, too drained to speak, the last and shortest of the waterfalls proving to be exactly what had been necessary to put an end to her exertions for the day. They had left her more of the mushrooms she hated, because bitter medicine was nourishing for the spirit, and been on their way.

The rain still fell heavily but now they had a sense that something else was changing in the air. It was not electricity, exactly, not the slow building of charge that warned them of the coming of the lightning, but the tension in the air grew greater and more terrible the further they walked. The path was grassy, and even though it was steep and wet the going was easy enough, but the fact of that ease seemed to belay a much deeper menace that the mountain held.

"Is it my imagination, or can you _feel_ the lynel in the distance?" Well, that wasn't fair; she didn't need her imagination for such a thing, even if it were not exerting real pressure. Still.

Paya's answering nod was thoughtful, cautious, considering of the world around them. "Yes. It's similar to the one at the foot of Mt. Lanayru, but… different, somehow. More intense, perhaps? Lynel give off a sense of menace that the trained or the sensitive can feel at a distance, and the more powerful they are the greater that menace can feel. I don't know if the rain or the presence of the Divine Beast might be having an effect on us, but…" The handmaiden ceased walking, her expression clouding. "Zelda, I'm sorry if this sounds impertinent or ignorant…"

"No! Not at all! Whatever question you have, I'm sure it's well-reasoned." More than that, she valued Paya's questions specifically because she brought a perspective that Zelda did not or could not have; never mind that she provided company that kept her sane, she needed Paya with her in immediate ways, to keep her grounded.

That did not set her wholly at ease. "Still, I am asking these questions because it's beyond my understanding, but… Grandmother said your power isn't limited by distance, and you demonstrated that with both me and Auntie Purah, yes?" She was flushed with her embarrassment, now. "I was just wondering, thinking about how we can feel the lynel, even from a distance, but… can't you reach out to the Divine Beast, like you did with the Guardians? Couldn't you try to reach it, and bypass the entire matter of approaching it physically?"

Zelda looked at her, then at the ground, then off into the distance where she imagined the Divine Beast was, through the mountain. "Oh, _damn_ it."

"Please, I didn't mean to upset you—I just thought…"

"No, Paya, that's just it; you're probably right. I just… I'm still limited in my thinking, I suppose. Too caught up in the concrete to consider the possibilities opened up by my powers when I'm willing to consider them." She rubbed at her forehead. "Thank you. I feel foolish, but thank you for pointing that out to me. I'll try to connect to the Divine Beast now, then." She began to remove her pack; for whatever reason, she thought sitting down would help with her concentration, though that had never been necessary before.

"Is there any way that I can help you? Lend you… strength, somehow?"

Zelda sat down on top of her pack, turning her awareness inward; when she spoke, she heard herself as if from a great distance. "I do not think so; all of the power I need should be at my call. But… if you want, once I have located the Divine Beast and gotten the measure of the Malice infesting it," because there was no doubt that Malice was indeed to blame for all of this, "I could show it to you, like I did for Purah."

"Oh, I would like that very much!" Paya was so enthusiastic that it cut through Zelda's inward-turned attention, reaching deep, and at once the princess of a dead kingdom knew that she had been neglecting her friend's needs and desire. There was no remedying that neglect; she could only address it in the future and hope to do well by the person who thought her only generous, only good.

Still, waiting to connect to Paya _was_ the best idea; the Divine Beast was much further from her than the Guardian had been on the marshes, and the concentration required to reach it and become aware of the danger would be much greater.

So, she went down into that place inside of her where the golden light sat waiting, burning, and took from it only enough to be _aware_ , to let her senses open up to be more than themselves. The world woke up around her as she saw with more than her eyes, and she and Paya were two suns set among a sea of comets that were the falling raindrops. There was no Malice in the rain; it was only ever water, behaving as water must when pushed into particular directions or places. No use in blaming the rain. The mountain beneath them was quiet but enormous, containing worlds of potential energies and memories, and at its base were roots that reached down into the very heart of the world. There was an understanding in the mountain that begged to be explored, a new avenue of meaning and knowing that could expand the part of her that was the goddess incarnate, but it was not why she was reaching out now. She reined in her consciousness, muzzled her curiosity, and turned her awareness to the great expanse of water, the sea of light that pushed hard against the bounds that would hold it in place. She did not even have to _travel_ , not even visualize her awareness moving; it was simply _there_ , however shaky that new placement made her mortal selves.

Vah Ruta was in the center of the reservoir, the water flowing in it and around it, and she could see the rivers of _power_ that swirled around it, leading the water in streams that would be invisible to the naked eye. They were like the root system of a tree reaching up into the sky and then even further, out across the land, a network of power that drew water from the far reaches of Hyrule as easy and as surely as it could have from directly beneath the beast. She could follow those—but no, not follow, she reined herself in again. The goddess part of her was nearly as curious as the human part who had woken up in the chamber, or maybe the one was beginning to affect the other ( _or maybe we have never truly been that separate from the beginning_ ), and it took every ounce of her will to take her attention and turn it toward the Divine Beast itself.

Later she would see the beast with her eyes and feel this awe again, but it would not be the same as it was now; here she saw Vah Ruta as it _really_ was, a titanic collection of powers, a palace of light, its shoulders four suns that regulated and directed the flow of that light throughout the entire structure. Size did not mean as much to her goddess-senses, but she could feel its construction, the engine that drove it, and every aspect of it that made it _what it was_ left her in a kind of quiet awe. Was this the work of the ancients? Was _this_ the true shape of what they'd been capable of—not the Guardians, or even the shrines, but this machine that was a breaker and shaper of worlds? Had the goddess's power been there, at the making of this thing, and helped to shape it and drive it? She thought perhaps it had. And now something was wrong, deep in the heart of it, down past the light, past the flowing powers, at its very core.

So she dove in, down, flitting through the rivers of molten gold that were the life's blood of Vah Ruta, towards the beating heart that powered the suns, toward the place where she could feel the familiar echo of a presence she had once known and trusted dearly. _Mipha_?

Then she found the Malice.

Then the Malice found her.

In the Guardian, the Malice core had been the tiniest, most delicate part of the machine, virulent and powerful but so small that it had taken almost none of her power to expunge it. That was not what this Malice was; this thing was solid, a shadow given depth and weight, like the blight that had entered into her own thoughts when the Calamity had attacked her in the snowfield. But to compare this thing to the blight from before was like comparing that blight to the Malice within the Guardian; she could feel it, its vastness and darkness and intensity, so plainly that it was like flame being put to flesh. On some level she thought that this thing was Ganon itself, as the weight of its regard resolved into the weight of its killing intent, as she felt it reach out from inside of Vah Ruta, taking its measure of this new intruder who was _not_ holding enough power to defend herself.

Then it struck her, and the world exploded.

Light flooded her eyes and pain lanced along every synapse as she collapsed.

* * *

Paya caught Zelda as she began to slump, thankful beyond measure that the princess did not start screaming. Her first reaction was cold and clinical and distant, making sure that her charge was not in immediate physical danger; she asked no questions at first, checking her vitals with a detached urgency. Airways clear and breathing steady, pulse strong, eyes responding to light as she pulled her eyelids open. Zelda did not try to push her away, but seemed conscious.

Then she allowed herself to react, "Zelda! Are you all right? What happened?" She tried to keep her voice down, desperately aware of the lynel lurking nearby, knowing that they could hear as well as a human or better, even in the rain.

Instead of answering, Zelda grasped her by both of the shoulders. Her grip was strong and steady, and Paya had to fight the urge to ask her again what had happened, what was wrong, the particular intersection of her failures that had led her to this moment so similar to many others that they'd been through. Instead she put her hands on the princess's, gently working her fingers under Zelda's grip so that those grasping fingers clutched hers, and lifted the hands away from her shoulders. Zelda was breathing steadily, trying to orient herself and her thoughts. It was apparently an act of tremendous difficulty, which made Paya's questions _more_ urgent rather than less, but she waited. She could wait.

Finally, after what seemed a very long time, "I have to learn how to protect myself when projecting, it seems." She still did not open her eyes, though she was clearly lucid. "My head hurts enormously. The light hurts my eyes. I feel as if failure to talk through every sensation I'm experiencing would result in me not being able to talk at all. That's ridiculous. I'm rambling. Sorry." She tried to sit up, and wordlessly Paya held her down. She thought that the princess would fight her, but she didn't. "I found the Malice inside of the Divine Beast. I thought that I might be able to treat it like I did the Guardian, but that was foolish. It's taken on an _extremely_ potent form, becoming a monster like I haven't encountered before. The lynel is nothing compared to the Blight that sits in Vah Ruta; it was like looking at Ganon itself." She opened one eye, looking up through a pained wince. "I'm sorry. I don't know if I can move. We may have to reconsider how we're going to get the shock arrows."

"I can take you back to the Domain immediately," and before the words have even left her mouth she knew they would be rejected, and the shake of the princess's head told her everything. "Failing that… I may be able to retrieve the shock arrows by myself. I won't be able to kill the lynel, not without you there, but even if it's keeping all of them on its person…" She couldn't make any promises; the senses of lynel were too sharp. If it were human, even if it were one of the Yiga trained specifically in those arts, she had faith that her grandmother's teachings would see her through. Against a lynel, though? Who could say? But she had to. "I will retrieve all that I can and then return. If the Zora still wish for us to deal with the lynel, then we can tend to it _after_ Vah Ruta." Though that was another thing she found herself carefully filing away to scream about later; if the thing in Vah Ruta was so much worse than the lynel, and the lynel so malignant that she could feel it like a stench in the air, then there was indeed a very great deal working against them now.

Bright blue eyes stared up at her, intense through their pain, and she felt herself becoming unmoored from making contact with them. Zelda did not like it; that was written plainly on her face. Written more subtly, in the bend of her eyebrows and the barely noticeable quirking and unquirking of the side of her mouth, was that she agreed that Paya was right. For all of her training, Zelda had left a very great deal of herself in the past, and her ability to hide her feelings on command was one of those things—or else whatever she had seen inside of Vah Ruta had simply knocked that part of her loose. Now she was running calculations, going through possibilities, trying to think of ways she could help, wrestling with a sudden sense of infirmity.

"I can be back on my feet and ready to fight in a few minutes."

"That will be too long." It was true: Zelda could not feel it because of whatever had just happened, but the lynel was growing closer, the weight of its awareness extended. "The lynel is actively searching for us; it's not sure that we're here, but the closer it gets the surer it will be. I need to go and steal the shock arrows from it, if only so that it will be confused and follow my presence instead of yours. Our only other option is for me to carry you down."

"Fine. Give me your sword. And your shield." Zelda's insistence was absolute. Paya asked no questions, though she had many to ask; instead she drew the eight-fold blade from its scabbard and, once Zelda released her shoulders, placed it in the princess's hands. "Stupid of me not to think of this before." The princess closed her hands around the hilt of the sword, winced in sudden and pronounced pain, and visibly fought it down. After a moment of straining, during which sweat broke out on her forehead and her hands began to shake, the sword began to glow in her hands—golden, producing its own light like a star. With shaking hands she offered it back. "It's not exactly the sword that seals the darkness, but… I think this will help, if you do have to fight."

Paya took back the blade delicately. It felt no warmer, though it looked as if it should; _she_ felt warmer touching it, as if the residual energies of Hylia's power was flowing from it, radiating into her. She slid it back into its scabbard and the light was sealed when she drove it home; in spite of the beauty of the light she was relieved; that radiance and holy might would have made it much more difficult for her to move undetected. She placed her shield in Zelda's hands, and the process was repeated, though this time Zelda did not seem quite so pained by the act of blessing.

"If you take too long," and Zelda's words were a promise, "I will come after you."

Paya nodded, and gave silent thanks to the gods when Zelda closed her eyes and seemed to turn her attention inward, toward healing herself. She said nothing, dared to say nothing, because the enormity of what Zelda had just given her ran almost counter to the way that it had happened. A weapon blessed by the Princess of Hyrule—effectively by the goddess herself. Such a thing was so precious, so beyond her understanding of value or of the sacred, that it beggared belief. To be holding her sword and her shield was to be carrying Zelda's protection, and this knowledge more than the fact of the items themselves filled her up with an emotion for which she did not have a name, until she thought she would explode in a burst of warmth and radiance that would shame every fire that had ever burned. She would not fail. The lynel drew closer and she cared not at all. She would not fail.

She retrieved her stealth armor from her pack and began to change.

* * *

Through the rain the lynel stepped, its wide hooves sinking into the softness of the wet earth, purchase thin and slick. Still its steps were confident, its patrol unencumbered, and if it was bothered by the rain or the wet then it gave no sign. The fur on its face was ridged _just_ so that water was kept from its eyes and its nose and its mouth, and as it walked it sniffed at the wet air, picking out scents that were far too subtle for the peoples of Hyrule to pick out. The rain, by all appearances, was no impediment at all.

It was impossible to say if the lynel thought in the same way as the peoples of Hyrule; that it was _intelligent_ seemed irrefutable, given the weapon and shield that it carried, the carefully crafted leather harnesses it used for stowing those when it was not prepared for combat. Those who had seen a lynel and lived to tell of it—and these were always those who knew when to run, because running was the only way to address a lynel and convince it that one sought no challenge—described them as having keenly measuring eyes that communicated an understanding of what they were looking at. They were also _cruel_ , hugely cruel, cruel in a way not unlike cats or humans, a grim amalgam of both that went further than either. Its sword was cruel, shaped for ripping more than killing, crippling rather than executing, and even its shield was lined in blades that would pull at weapons or at flesh in the usage. People had died striking at lynels, not because they had taken a counter-blow from their swords or clubs but because they had found themselves on the receiving end of a vigorous parry and the shield had opened them up, turning the ground red.

This lynel, in particular, was orders of magnitude more dangerous than the one that had attacked the incarnate goddess and her attendant at the foot of Mount Lanayru; whether separated by age or experience or a greater concentration of Malice in its making none could say, because no one had observed a lynel for long enough to say whether or not they aged or grew or shared any of the common processes by which living things changed over time. All that could be said for sure was that the dark coloring of its face and the white coloring of its mane was an indication of brutality in keeping with the finer, keener make of its weapons. Like many of its kin this lynel carried a bow, which by dark arts could fire a single arrow as three; in its quiver, nearly bottomless so long as the lynel drew breath, hummed the potential of thunder.

There was a sense of power in the air, and the lynel followed it, its course ambling and slow; it was reticent to step away from the territory it had claimed for itself, that it had marked with the signs of its archery practice, shock arrows buried in the trunks of trees and even stones. Still, there was something further down the mountain, something that called to it, something that made its hackles rise in the potential for greater and more terrible furies. Two somethings, or only one with a gradient of being; it was impossible to be sure.

A twig snapped behind it and it whirled instantly, rearing up into its hind legs as it turned, nearly losing its footing before bringing its forelegs down in a crash that shook the ground beneath it and flattened the grass within five paces. It roared in challenge, daring anything in the dark to answer its call and whet its appetite for massacre.

But nothing was there. The rain fell on stones and grass and a gently sloping path, and there was no presence to suggest that anything had _ever_ been there.

Except that some part of the presence down the hill had disappeared. Which meant it was here. Challenging the lynel. Hunting it. Seeking to assert dominance over it, claim its territory.

The lynel bellowed again, a sound so terrible the rain fell in sheets _around_ it and for one moment no water struck the monster at all. The echo of its roar faded slowly, and it listened to the quiet after, to the no-answer that came back to it.

A twig snapped further up the hill. The lynel did not roar again. Instead it walked, slowly, drawing its sword and shield from their harnesses, body tensed, waiting for the inevitable attack. Whatever was challenging it wished to fight it within its own territory; this suited the lynel, as much as it could be suited. The ground was slick, its footing unsure, but nothing in the lynel's posture suggested caution, or even the _capacity_ for caution. Whatever sought it out would be met face-to-face; this was the lynel's hunt, now, whether this other power knew it or not.

The walk back up the hill was slow, and its attention would have wandered except that every once in a great while, at irregular intervals, there would be a sound ahead of it: a breaking stick, a rock striking another rock, the barest flash of killing intent floating in the air. They were tiny sounds, and any other beast in Hyrule would not have heard them beneath the rain, but lynels were not like other monsters. They were only like lynels.

Enormous stones at the peak of the mountain obscured its line of sight; it would need to patrol now, focus on its tracking abilities to root out whatever its antagonist was. This suited it, too. It was impossible to say what the lynel _believed_ , or if it was capable of theorizing regarding the minds of other creatures, regarding the sounds that the other presence kept making. Did it think those mistakes? Lures? Did it only process them as sounds, to be followed?

The hum of electric discharge, of wood softly releasing an object it had been holding. The lynel bounded across the clearing, toward one of the trees that it had used for target practice, its full gallop covering the distance in the span of heartbeats. It scrabbled to a stop in front of the tree, which should have been riddled which shock arrows.

The arrows were gone. The places where they had been pulled free were still steaming, the act of pulling the arrows out having activated them just enough to vaporize the rainwater that had touched the point of contact. The lynel sniffed at the air, touched its fingertips against the place where the arrows had been resting. It looked away, back toward the center of its territory. Whatever had invaded its mountain was able to hide itself, but the shock arrows…

It sniffed at the air again, catching a whiff of ozone, feeling the electromagnetic currents that shaped the air and interfered with each other in ways that could not be detected by the nervous systems of any of the peoples of Hyrule. _Those_ could not be hidden. Not as effectively.

It bounded toward where the currents were most interfering with each other, found a boulder that had been emptied of the signs of its practice, the marking of its territory. The interference grew more pronounced, more easily _pursued_ , and pursue the lynel did, now leaping around the peak, all caution abandoned, inspecting trees and stones and little spots on the path. At each place it would stop and examine where the arrows had been, and then it would sniff at the air, at the ground, searching for some sign of the creature that was stealing its property. It found nothing; there was nothing to find. The air around it began to boil, from rage or excitement or some other, unnamable emotion that it did not share with any other monster, and it roared once again, so loud and terrible that the sound made Zora children in the Domain look up at the mountain in sudden, almost primal, fear. There was the sound of death.

Its prey—because the word now was _prey_ , not adversary or antagonist or even quarry but _prey_ —had stolen nearly all of the shock arrows, and somehow managed to evade it up to now. The lynel had not seen its shadow, nor smelled its leavings, or managed to find any sign at all, but it was there, and the shock arrows were _with it_ , and their charge called out like a song.

The lynel drew its bow, nocking an arrow from its quiver, and the magic in that bow made one lightning bolt into three. The arrows called to each other, lines of power intersecting over the entirety of the peak, and it was with perfect, blank-faced confidence that it drew the bowstring taut, aimed into the shadows of a tree, and fired.

A flash—not of light but of _motion_ , and then light and the motion was gone. It turned and drew taut another arrow and fired again, leading based on the movement of its prey, aiming slightly off so that it would strike at a puddle just away from where it assumed its prey to be.

The three shock arrows striking the puddle erupted into domes of killing lightning, a sustained surge of electricity that hissed and roared and bit at the air, and there was another flash of movement as the lynel's prey leaped away, fast, unbelievably fast, the placement of the puddle and the eruption forcing it out into the open.

The lynel took one moment to look at it, seemingly unsure of what it was seeing. A shadow, perhaps, with tightly bound silver hair.

The lynel put its bow away, drew its sword and shield, and roared its challenge. No one knew if lynels experienced anything akin to happiness, but the bards had often sung that they experienced _fulfillment_ in the moment of the challenge, as if they were warriors who sought to test themselves against greater and greater powers until they found something worthy of their true fury. Like as not these ideas were nonsense: the only reality was in the violence itself, in the wickedly hooked sword and shield and the rain falling on its face as it screamed.

The shadow, with nowhere to run, drew a blade and a shield. These were much smaller than the lynel's, but they glowed with an insistent, golden light.

* * *

Sidon had not panicked on seeing Gaddison collapsed on the ground, breathing in the great labored gasps of the truly exhausted; he could see she was uninjured, that none of her blood had mixed with the rain. There was a moment, still, brief but intense, where the possibility had assailed him and he had prepared himself to deal with the reality of one needless death, and then very probably two more.

She looked up at him as he ran toward her and stood immediately at attention, banishing her signs of fatigue through sheer force of will and wasn't she _magnificent!_ But she had no breath with which to greet him and so he spoke first:

"Gaddison! The lynel is worse than we had imagined! You have done magnificently in bringing our friends here, but now I must ask you for still more: please, go back to the Domain, and summon as many soldiers as we can spare! We will need all of them!"

How proud he was of her, that she saluted him, that without another word she leapt from the height of the falls and dove. She would run the entire way there, exhaustion be damned, and she would be with the soldiers when they arrived as reinforcements; but he had no time to watch her, no time for anything except to run, spear in hand, up the mountain.

His stride was as long as a Hylian's, his footing no less sure, and he did not stop until he saw a woman in blue seated on the grass, clutching at her head and breathing aloud. His knowledge of Hylian anatomy was not so specific, or so useful, as to be trusted here.

"Zelda! Are you wounded? Where is Paya?"

Zelda looked up at him, her face a perfect expression of surprise. "Sidon? What are you—" She stopped, hissed between her teeth. "Paya has gone up the mountain. I'm… I can tell you later. The lynel had begun to track us, and she thought that she could lure it away and steal the shock arrows without being spotted."

Before this moment Sidon had respected Zelda, who carried the world on her shoulders, but now he also felt that he understood Paya; Paya who walked without the benefit of the power of the gods, Paya whose life was lived in service, Paya who would lay that life down with happiness! To be walking on the same mountain as people of such stout, good hearts—he thought his own was full to bursting. But he imagined her, one lone woman, against the greater senses and overwhelming power of the lynel.

"The lynel is _white-maned_ , Zelda. It's one of the very worst creatures the Calamity has ever spawned—we thought it would be red-maned, like the one that walked Ploymus in the years before the Calamity, but the thing up there now is a walking army! We must warn her and get away from this place!"

From above them the lynel roared, a sound that could drown out thunder, and Sidon could feel the fear sinking down into his chest, the surety of death that accompanied that roar, and that fear was as terrible as the creature that summoned it.

But his spear was in his hand and his people's faith on his shoulders, and he banished fear from his heart, and Zelda was running up the mountain and now Sidon was following behind her and the rain fell.

* * *

A lynel was no quicker than a moblin, or a bokoblin, or a lizalfos. In some ways it was slower than each of those, even—a moblin wielding a spear would thrust from its hip and shoulder in one motion, with no wind-up, to make it almost impossible to react to its attack in time. The lynel cared not at all that one could see its attacks coming—every blow was clearly telegraphed, signaled by the winding up of a body that could shatter boulders by the strength of its hands. Its face was a lion's face, and could not be read like a person's, but in its eyes Paya saw a malice that suggested that it _wanted_ its opponent to see the attacks coming, to know that they would be crushed.

 _There are degrees of power for which technique is no answer_ , her Grandmother's words echoed in her head. _But they are rare, indeed_.

Paya launched herself backward, somersaulting in midair as the lynel's sword clove through the space where she had been a fraction of a second before. Their eyes met as she was suspended, as the momentum of a blow that would have cut her in half as if she were not there carried it well past where it should have tried to stop itself. Yes, she thought, those eyes were indeed intelligent. Intelligent and unbelievably, insurmountably cruel.

Her feet touch the ground and she dashed forward, lashing out with her sword in a smooth strike that started at her hip and ended with her arm fully extended, tracing an arc of golden light that ran over the lynel's face like a viper's kiss. _Its flesh is like stone_ , she thought, because that was true, but the thought did not make her despair. She carried a weapon that could cut stone.

The lynel reared back, bellowing, and she dashed forward again, spinning, now inside of its stance and underneath its torso, standing behind its forelegs as they came crashing down in a stampede of boulders. She swung again, once for each of the tendons connecting its hooves to its legs, and though there were spurts of blood and a new bellow of pain and fury the tendons held.

Now the lynel leaped backward, and she understood the depths of the power it was drawing upon as it launched itself a distance of easily thirty meters, coming to a stop with its back against a boulder. It roared again, as if to challenge her to approach.

The Sheikah did not have a combat manual for addressing lynels except in groups. For a red-maned lynel, five capable warriors working in tandem would be necessary to prevail without casualty. For a white-maned—much less a silver—the preferred number was "as many as are available" and was best supplemented by explosives. To face one alone was not brave; it was foolish in the extreme, a waste of life that could be given over in service to the goddess and to the royal family. A single person, faced with a lynel, was expected to do one thing: _escape_.

So the lynel roared its challenge and Paya bolted. She had enough shock arrows to address the problem of Vah Ruta, and it was a _surety_ that she would die fighting this thing; the only question was how long she would last. She ran as the Sheikah were trained to run, each step an enormous bound, body low to the ground to reduce her profile if she were spotted. The side of the mountain was badly exposed, but if Zelda had recovered sufficiently to jump from the side they could use their paragliders and be away before the lynel could catch up. She needed only to get away from the summit, out of the loose ring of stones that stood like mountains around a minor nation—

She smelled the fireball, heard it, in time to throw herself behind one of those same stones. The space she had been occupying before erupted as if struck by the Calamity, a wall of fire searing her clothes as she shielded her face with one of her arms.

The second fireball struck the stone on the other side, bursting into liquid death that flung itself forward another twenty meters, laying down fires that burned and danced as if the rain was not falling, leaving a corridor of safe earth lined on each side by burning death. She had been funneled into an obvious trap in seconds. But how would it act on that?

She was answered by thunder. She looked up, hearing the shock arrows as they sailed lazily upwards; there were three, radiance burning dark spots on her retinas as they fell, and by their arcs she saw that they would land at regular intervals along the path that the lynel had made for her. There would be no escaping them, not at the speed she could run.

Paya turned and leaped up the stone, scrabbling for purchase against the wet-slick surface, and as she reached its top she saw the lynel nocking another volley. Its expression was utterly incurious, and she felt the shock arrows explode behind her from the feeling of static that made her hair stand nearly on end. It looked at her, but no more than that, as it launched another high volley. She, who was trained to fight archers, saw where they would land; behind her and to either side of her, but now they were aimed at _puddles_ , which would increase their effective range enormously.

She was fast enough, and she ran, legs pumping, as the world exploded into lightning around her. She had the vague sense that the lynel was trying to herd her, and she did not let it; she skirted around the radius of the shock arrows' effects, leaning so hard into her turns that her fingers scraped the grass, and she would have fallen if not for pushing herself up, treating her hand as a third foot in her scramble. Her feet tried to betray her, slipping in the mud, and she forced them to act in accordance with her survival. She would not be hunted; above all things, not that.

The lynel charged and she dashed around a rock, and the lynel leaped over it with a roar as its hooves beat crack-lined pits in the side of the boulder, arms reaching forward with fingers so strong that they actually punched their own purchase into the stone. It reached for her and she ducked beneath its grip, slashing at its wrist, and there was a spurt of blood and a roar of fury and then the lynel's fist swung for her. She slipped around it, tilting her body so that the beast's arm sailed smoothly past her torso—and then the force of that fist hitting the ground was like a bomb going off, not from its sound but from the force that pressed against her back and lifted her into the air. She was a paper lantern caught in the wind, hurled over the lynel's shoulder, over the stone, back toward the center of the clearing.

She landed on her feet and thought perhaps one of her ribs was broken but it did not matter, she spun with her sword ready as the lynel wheeled, sword and shield forgotten. It lowered its head and charged, its whole body a battering ram, presenting such a narrow profile that one could be forgiven for forgetting how enormous it was. _Impaled on the horns, or ripped apart by its hands, or trampled under its hooves_ , she thought, thinking of the most likely ways she might die, and as it bore down on her she shifted to her left and thrust with her sword, pushing with all the force in her arm.

The resistance of the lynel's body nearly tore the sword from her hands but she held firm and traced a long line across its side, from its armpit all the way to its horse-body's hip. More blood, more pain, but it wouldn't matter. She could cut it dozens of times that seriously and gain almost nothing by it. She had to get away. How was she going to get away?

The lynel slid in the mud, hooves and claws digging up great gouges of earth as it spun, and already it was turning on her, she thought to bolt again but it was already rearing back, its sword was in its hand and it was not aiming for _her_ , it was going to thrust its weapon into the _ground_ , and as she felt its power building she realized two things: she did not have time to get out of range of the attack, and the force of blocking it with her shield would break every bone in her body. In some remote place she hoped that the shock arrows she carried would survive. Perhaps they would be thrown down the mountain, where the Zora could retrieve them.

So, for the second of three times, she prepared to die.

The lynel lurched forward in the motion that would bring its sword into the ground and unleash the power that would scorch the entire mountaintop, and at the most forward point of its arc an arrow struck it in the muzzle. It hit the ground on its face, collapsing, momentarily robbed of its power but already gathering itself, already recovering enough to push itself up into what was almost a kneeling position.

"Zelda? Zelda, no!" She couldn't be here, not now, not against this thing, they had to run, even working together—"We have to get out of here! Run!" She turned to the direction that the arrows had come from, ready to tell her charge to run for her life, for Hyrule, for the _world_ , she could not fight Ganon if she was killed by a lynel—

But saw only a mighty, golden light.

* * *

Zelda put away her bow and stepped into the clearing, heedless of Paya's warning, and she was enshrouded with the power of the goddess, the power that filled the world around her with a sound like a bell and a light most glorious and terrible. She had to ignore Paya, just for now, and focus on the lynel. She had to make sure it would focus on _her_.

She was not sure how much of the power she could summon without Ganon striking back against her, but she was confident that the strength needed to obliterate the lynel was comfortably on the wrong side of that threshold. So, when it regained its senses, forced itself to its feet, turned its bright eyes toward her with an expression that she could not read, she did not attack it. She only approached it.

This was her first time consciously seeing a lynel: it was like a nightmare, biological concepts strung together without a mind for sense or utility. Its upper torso was nearly as large as its lower, maybe even _bigger_ , and she did not understand how it could support its own weight distribution, even with legs as powerful and tree-like as those. The way it turned to face her was decidedly like an enormous cat, far too graceful for that colossal frame, and she could feel the potential in its body as it looked at her.

She had no sense of perspective by which to understand how significant it was that the lynel hesitated when it faced her; she only knew that for a moment, as she approached, it did not move. Good. She needed that time.

The lynel hefted its sword and shield, and she carefully walked sideways, trying not to provoke it as she drew the Sheikah Slate from her belt and selected a particular rune. The monster tracked her with its eyes, turned to always be facing her, but for just a moment longer it was still.

Then it bellowed, and it was already charging.

" _Zelda!_ " Paya's scream was a sound of confused anguish.

"Sidon!" In answer to her call a red blur cut across the clearing as she poured some portion of her strength into the Sheikah Slate and fired.

* * *

The lynel froze mid-charge, chained down by the temporal properties of the Sheikah Slate, these bolstered by the power of the goddess, as it drew back its sword to cut her down. Normally this would have lasted only for a second, perhaps two, but the power was Hylia's power and against that the lynel was quite ordinary.

Sidon's spear technique was learned from Seggin, Seggin who had taught Mipha, Seggin from whom the Hero had learned by watching. When he thrust and pulled back and thrust again it was with a speed that defied the eye to follow, blows falling on the frozen lynel with a speed to match the rain. The sound of the stasis being struck was deafening, louder even than the Prince's battle cry, his full-throated roar utterly drowned out by the ferocity of his attack as the force of his blows was shunted away, held in reserve to be paid all at once.

The lynel was where Zelda had said it would be. Sidon was where he had been instructed; on the side of it opposite Shatterback Point. They three together perhaps could have killed it in fair combat, but it was risky. Much stronger than they, Zelda had told Sidon, was the hammer of gravity.

Twenty dozen blows did Sidon rain on the lynel, never letting up, never breathing. The slate's power held it as momentum built up like a promise. Then the stasis broke, without warning, and Sidon's spear touched only empty air.

The boulder behind the lynel exploded as the monster went hurtling through it, sending a cloud of gravel flowing outward in a hail of arrowheads that shredded the shrubbery on that side of the clearing. The tree it slammed into after that was similarly obliterated, shivering apart into splinters so fine that they could have been inhaled. On and on the lynel went, skipping and bouncing up the hill toward Shatterback Point.

It lived, still, the iron of its bones and the stone of its flesh mightier than the mere objects it had been sent through. Sidon's attack told on it, opening a great hole in its side that might eventually prove to be its undoing, but in that moment it lived. Mid-somersault it planted its hooves into the earth, stopping its tumble, but the force with which it had been thrown was so great that even then it kept hurtling backward, digging four deep furrows in the ground. With its sword and its shield it dug into the earth, trying to stop itself, and it slowed and it slowed but it did not stop.

The lynel went over the edge of Shatterback Point, but not at speed; its fall was a slow thing, almost graceful, as its hooves slipped over the lip of the cliff. Pride forgotten, the beast let go of its sword and its shield and with all the strength in its arms latched onto the stone, hanging off the edge by virtue of its grip alone. Its hooves dug furrows into the cliff face, seeking purchase, and with its arms it began to try to haul itself up.

They had to run, the handmaiden insisted.

They had to kill it, the prince argued. If it did not die now, then it would only return later, and all of his people would suffer.

They could not leave the Zora to face this beast in the future, the princess decided.

Far, far, far below them, Vah Ruta turned with ponderous slowness toward the drama playing out on the mountain above it. The power that drove it tilted its head up, and the Divine Beast roared, and there was a red light.

The three of them drew close to the lynel, which was making progress in pulling itself up, but only slowly.

To draw too near to it would be death, the handmaiden warned, for its arms could tear any of them apart.

It was a good thing to carry a spear, said the prince, as they drew near to it.

Better still to have bombs, the princess demonstrated, summoning one into her hand. The lynel looked at her and seemed resigned. She looked past the lynel, seeing down into the reservoir, at the red luminescence that shone from Vah Ruta's throat.

What was the Divine Beast doing, she asked, but she already knew the answer, reaching out with the goddess's power and drawing Sidon and Paya bodily to her as she keyed in a teleportation command on the Sheikah Slate.

The three of them were gone, dissolved into lines of blue light, and then Vah Ruta fired.

* * *

A pillar of blinding radiance pierced the sky, tilted to the east like a tower that had reached for the heavens and then begun to fall. The clouds parted around it, stopping the rain in that region for a time. It was seen all over Hyrule; in every city, every settlement, every waypoint on the road, people stopped and looked up for the brief moments during which the sky was lit up by something brighter and stranger than the sun.

The Calamity saw this, too, and Hyrule Castle quaked with the force of its laughter.

* * *

The peak of Mount Ploymus was gone, evaporated, and the wound left behind smoked and hissed as the rain returned. The wound itself was almost tubular, the beam of destruction perfectly obliterating everything it touched, so that the surface of the stone left behind was as smooth and gleaming as polished glass.

Of the lynel, of course, there was nothing left.

The clouds closed, and the rain began to fall again as Vah Ruta sank back into its waiting posture. It returned to its task, spewing water into the air, but there was a different sense about it now, a sense of what it _really_ was: a weapon, one of the most powerful ever built by humans or demons or gods. A weapon that stood in the reservoir, seeking to break it with the power of water, and more perfectly destroy Hyrule thereby.

Sidon and Paya and Zelda reappeared in front of the shrine in the heart of Zora's Domain, and there was a great deal of shouting when they ran back out into the plaza, how had they survived, surely they should have died, oh we are so relieved to see you our prince, someone run and tell the soldiers not to approach Ploymus, but they three pushed past it all, staring up at the shattered, blasted face of the mountain. There the face of their task: there the mark left by the true power of the forces of the Calamity.

Above them, now, Vah Ruta roared. The rain fell, and fell, and fell.


	14. Attack on Vah Ruta

The Zora armor squeezed her diaphragm, not quite enough to restrict her breathing but enough so that she would not forget it was there. The contours of the armor were sleek, sleek enough that one might be forgiven for forgetting that it was armor at all until striking it with a fingernail, finding that there was little give. Not as protective as plate, perhaps, but this armor would turn aside a claw or spear without too much trouble. The pressure it applied to her shoulders and arms was not restrictive; she could _feel_ the way it pushed in on her muscles, demanding more efficient action out of them. It made her feel capable of things she had not been capable of before. Stories said that Zora-made armor could not make Hylians swim like the aquatic people, but that it could give them a taste of that freedom and power. Standing in her room in the inn, she believed it.

"Is the fit all right?" Paya was fastening the buckles on her own gauntlets; her armor was the color of obsidian while Zelda's was the color of a pearl, and the princess had to admit that Dento's sense of what shades fit them was nearly flawless.

"I think so." She used unsure language because she did not like to make absolute statements, not until she was positive and had tested a hypothesis, but she found herself walking that back. "I suspect that it's perfect, in fact, but we won't know until we use it, will we?"

In answer to this, Paya raised her arms over her head and slowly, slowly lowered them to her sides. She went through several stretches like that, moving her arms up or down or to the sides, rotating her torso, squatting, testing her range of motion by going through warm-ups that Zelda imagined might precede a sparring session. Only after some minutes of this did Paya finally stand, exhale, and nod.

"Dento does very good work. It's not restrictive at all, but there's no friction under the armor, either, so there should be no chafing. The pressure being applied in our limbs is actually improving our blood flow. I don't know if it will be as effective as they say, but I _am_ eager to try swimming in this."

"Your approval is all the confidence I need. It's only a shame that there aren't helmets to go along with the armor and greaves; Cotera's blessing makes my hood effective enough protection, but I worry that it might create drag when we're swimming." There was a badly worn tablet in the Domain that suggested that helmets _had_ been made in the past, but only rarely, as rewards for acts of great heroism. _And there will be no time to make an equivalent for us, of course_.

Paya's look was thoughtful, and Zelda once again found herself appreciating how seriously her companion would consider these problems. "You should wear it, if you think nothing else will be effective. It might slow you down if you're swimming alone, yes, but that's better than some stray projectile hitting you in the head. Though considering the scale of what we're facing…" She shook her head, her hair waving behind her. "Protection may not matter as much as we hope. I'll be wearing my mask, for comfort's sake."

At this Zelda nodded; she understood the need to feel like _some_ precautions were being taken, to hold to comfortable forms. Still, the mask would not do for her, and the hood _did_ worry her. Speed might end up being critically important in the hours to come, and she did not want to sacrifice that if she could help it. She hemmed and hawed for perhaps fifteen more seconds before reaching into her pack and drawing out the bandana she had been granted in the Ree Dahee shrine; it improved core strength through means similar to those of the Zora Armor. Perhaps it would help in swimming?

Well, even if it didn't, it was still _something_ , and would drag less than her hood. She tucked her hair into a tight bun and tied the bandana around her head, tested the hold, and found it satisfactory. That would have to do. Paya, who was finishing the adjustment of her mask, nodded in approval.

"They'll be waiting for us in the throne room," Zelda said, and the two of them stepped out into the rain together. It felt very different, after having seen Vah Ruta.

People were gathered in the plaza; there were always people in the plaza, but now there were _many_ more, Zora of all ages who were trying their best to go about their normal lives, to pretend that they were not there to see the two women in Zora armor, especially the girl who spoke with the voice of the gods. They tried not to stare, but their regard was still a weight, impossible to get away from or out from under, and Zelda could feel the pressure of it far more acutely than the armor's embrace. Mipha's statue stood in the rain, ever impassive, and Zelda found herself trying to draw strength from the face and demeanor of the woman she sought to free. She had to focus. She had to keep her eye on her goal; if she let herself look at her own feet, or slow down for even a moment, then she would trip and be crushed by the forces pursuing her and the expectations of the people she could not fail.

Zelda and Paya walked the long steps up to the throne room, silent in the rain, and Zelda drew her confidence from having Paya next to her. Was Paya doing the same, she wondered? Was she a burden to Paya, someone to be protected when they acted rashly, foolishly? They had not spoken about what happened on Ploymus Mountain, what each of them could have done differently; did Paya dwell on it, as she did? Were her regrets and doubts self-focused, as Zelda's were, or had Zelda given her cause to look at her charge and wonder? She remembered how Paya had called out her name, the fear and the confusion…

The throne room was full; Sidon stood at the foot of the throne, arms crossed, addressing the gathered guards of the realm: Gaddison was central among them, but almost every guard was there, each listening to their prince as he gave them instructions or encouragement that Zelda was not quite close enough to catch. Muzu, Seggin, and Dento stood around the schematics of the Divine Beast, arguing with each other about the best vectors of approach even though the plan of attack had been decided hours ago. The rest of the council of elders milled about the chamber, mostly listening, some standing behind the guards with eyes closed, perhaps reliving the days of their youth, imagining that it was to them that their prince was speaking.

Dorephan, seated above it all, watched every group and every person from his throne, and was the first to see when Zelda and Paya entered. He cleared his throat, a rumbling like distant thunder, and all conversation ceased at once as the eyes of the room found him and then followed his gaze to the two who had just walked in.

"I believe," Dorephan's voice echoed in that enclosed space, though he spoke only gently, "that we are all familiar with the plan of attack, and that there are no last-minute suggestions regarding deployment." His eyes were on Muzu, who shook his head solemnly. "Good. That is well. Urgency has been a factor in how we address the calming of Vah Ruta from the beginning; after seeing its weapon deployed, I believe that same urgency is paramount. We must act, and we must act immediately." He pushed himself to a standing position, a shifting of mass so enormous that one could feel the breeze as he moved. "Are we all prepared?"

A scattered chorus of affirmatives, the firmest from the prince, but Dorephan was not looking at any of them: he was looking at Zelda, expectant and questioning all at once. "We do need to be prepared," she said, and she tried to project enough that she might be heard, "for the possibility that Vah Ruta will deploy its weapon against any group that approaches it. If it fires in any direction below a certain angle, it will definitely compromise the integrity of the reservoir, and the effects…" She did not have to say, she knew.

"Our destruction will be no less assured regardless of when the reservoir breaks," Dorephan said, and there was another murmur of assent, even from the elders. Zelda felt the truth there, but still feared it. "If the weapon is fired, then we will be lost sooner; if it is not, we will be lost later. We must risk it. Should it attempt to use the weapon immediately." His expression shifted, and though Zelda did not know how to read Zora faces she knew this one, saw written in the lines of his age the same fears and worries that had shaped the ghost of her father. "We must rely on the protection of the gods." _I am sorry_ , his eyes said, though his words could not; they could only place that burden on her.

Zelda understood the love that Dorephan's people had for him; he had been a warrior before a king, and in many ways was still a father before he was a monarch. If it were his choice he would be joining them in the assault, taking to the water and addressing Vah Ruta with the strength of his arms. But that could not be: he was too large a target, too important, too sure to die in the attack, and she could see the helplessness and shame and regret written on the spaces between the lines of his face, where his advisors and son would never think to look. She did not need the goddess's power to see the pain there.

That burden was his; hers was another, and neither could share or ease the other's weight. So be it. The Zora needed something of their king, and something else from her; if Dorephan would give of himself, in spite of how it pained him, could she possibly do less?

"We will have it," she said, and the Zora did not cheer; their collective intake of breath, the hushed awe of their whispers, was far more intense, far heavier on her shoulders.

* * *

There was no flash of lightning as the attack began, no roar of thunder to announce them. There was only the rain, the waves thrown up by the shifting of Vah Ruta's legs, and then the earth-splitting roar that went up in answer to their presence.

On the edge of the reservoir they stood, the gathered courageous, silver spears in every set of hands, save two: one that held the Sheikah Slate, and one that held a bow. The spears would be useless, unless the Divine Beast suddenly sent Lizalfos after them; still, they were symbols of power, of training, of courage, and they held to them as if that courage would save their lives. Zelda prayed, to gods whose names she had forgotten, that they were right.

Vah Ruta's slow, ponderous turn brought its side around, and its massive eyes seemed to focus on them. It bugled again, and the force of the sound was like a physical thing that pushed against Zelda's chest.

"Remember the plan!" Sidon's voice was lifted against the storm, crying out to be heard over Vah Ruta's promised rage. "Distract the Divine Beast at all costs! Harry it, if you can!" When he said _all costs_ he meant it, and Zelda could feel the weight of it on him, the pain that flared inside of him as he knowingly threw men and women he loved to what well might be their deaths. _He will die before any of them if he can help it_. "We want to divide its attention as much as possible. Gaddison, keep to the outside, and give Zelda the best perspective you can! Zelda, we'll be relying on you to stymie its attacks where necessary! Paya and I will be taking every opening we can to bring this thing down. Are we prepared?"

The Zora answered in a wordless call, an ululating wail that put molten iron into the pit of Zelda's stomach. Oh yes, they were ready. " ** _ZORA!_** " They roared their name, their people, their kingdom, and the strength of their conviction made the Divine Beast seem small and petty. But it was not.

"For Mipha," Sidon said, so quietly that only she and Paya would have heard him.

Then she grabbed onto Gaddison's back, and Paya onto Sidon's, and they were in the water, and Vah Ruta's bellow drowned out the world.

* * *

Many were they, the creatures that cut through Vah Ruta's waters, each of them an arrow that left churning white wakes behind them, swimming far faster than a human could run. Many were the paths they cut, their wakes crisscrossing as they moved to surround the beast, to pull its attention in every possible direction. Many were the vectors of attack they would create.

Many were the powers of the Divine Beast.

Water froze and rose into the air in the form of tremendous cubes of ice, each side of them as long as a Zora was tall. Five rose at once in front of the Divine Beast, a barrier that would only work against a much smaller attack force.

Then five more rose at its rear. And five more at each side. And then more, to cover the gaps. And then more, to layer the defenses, and more, until they were coming up in tens and twenties, and the attackers did not stop but their eyes were wide and they felt a deep, physical terror at the hundreds upon hundreds of frozen boulders that hung suspended in the air like winter decorations.

Then all the blocks began to move at once, a hailstorm to shame the gods.

* * *

"Hold on to me!" Sidon's voice was unlike Paya had heard it before; she had thought he did not have the capacity for that kind of cold, reacting fear. He barely waited for her grip to shift, and above her ice blocks were exploding into vapor as if being shattered by the raindrops and Sidon dove, pulling her down into the depths of the reservoir.

Zelda's aim was incredible, her speed at using the Sheikah Slate to break the ice blocks almost beyond belief, but still she felt and heard the water above them broken by the collision of tons of ice. The water flowed around her as if it weren't there, feeling no thicker than the air they had been in seconds before, but she had no time to reflect on the fineness of her armor or even the power of the Zora prince whose prowess would determine whether she lived or died in the next few minutes. Sidon wheeled in the water, looking up, and Paya saw the ice blocks did not sink deep; they slowed in the water before pulling back up, their momentum carrying them toward other targets. She had not been really prepared for submerging, did not know how long she would be able to hold her breath as Sidon's better-adjusted eyes marked the path of the blocks, trying to chart a course through them, or see some pattern in the storm…

Then the ice blocks plunged down into the water, driven by some invisible force so powerful that they lost barely any momentum, careening straight toward them.

Sidon dashed with such suddenness that Paya felt the strain in her shoulders as they threatened to dislocate, and it was all she could do to press her face against the back of his neck and hope that he would breach soon.

* * *

"Take me in closer!" She could barely hear her own voice over the sound of the Sheikah Slate discharging, and it was taking all the strength in her lower body to hold her balance on Gaddison's back as the Zora woman swam beneath her, cutting in different directions to dodge the rain of ice blocks that Zelda could not see coming. Thankfully Gaddison had been able to avoid submerging as Sidon had, but Zelda did not have the attention to spare thinking about how uncomfortable Paya must have been.

"I can't," Gaddison said, turning back and speaking clearly enough to be heard over the rain and the wind and the crashing of ice against ice. "A triple portion of the ice is being thrown at _you_ , and I can't find a way in unless there's less to contend with."

Well, _that_ wasn't happening. She was having a hard enough time keeping track of the Zora and protecting them where possible, and trying to do that _and_ make a path for Gaddison were mutually exclusive. She had to get closer, though, to be able to address the ice at its source, as it was being summoned, or else she'd never be able to keep up with how quickly Vah Ruta could generate its weapons. More, she needed to be able to shift her perspective, to keep easier track of the other Zora so she could determine who was in most dire need of protection. She'd lost track of Sidon altogether, and he and Paya _had_ to get to Vah Ruta or all of this was for nothing, if only she could _see_ —

 _Ah_ , she thought, as she fired the Sheikah Slate into a block that was only an arm's reach away from her face, showering herself and Gaddison in what felt like snow. _Of course_.

Then she reached down within herself, to the place where her power sat. Neither the woman who woke up in the chamber nor the princess of a hundred years ago balked, now; with all of herself she drew upon the light of the goddess, and it filled her thoughts and made the world into a storm of light.

Everything froze, then; the blocks hung suspended in the air, and Vah Ruta's servos engaged without end, and she saw the Zora swimming wildly, caught diving and breaching, their wakes drawing complex patterns in the water. She saw it all, took it in at her leisure.

But it wasn't _really_ frozen; as she looked she saw water droplets move in relation to each other, and two ice blocks grinding together as they vied with each other to be the ones to smash into Gaddison. She saw Sidon streaking toward the surface of the water, saw Paya clutching desperately to his shoulders as she fought to hold her breath. She saw the battlefield moving slowly, so slowly.

The Sheikah Slate responded in her hand, as if nothing was holding it back at all. Time, it seemed, was less of a concern for the slate as its surroundings.

The world groaned around her, pressing in against the edge of her thoughts, and she felt the pressure of her mind trying to hold up the goddess's power, some fraction of how Hylia saw the world.

 _I can't sustain this for long_ , she realized, and "long" meant something very different from this perspective than it had before. _Fine. Short bursts. Pick the moments that matter most, draw out a path…_

She reached out with the sheikah slate, selected one of the ice blocks, and fired.

* * *

Two ice blocks that Gaddison had been swerving to avoid erupted into mist—and then more, _dozens_ more, burst all over the reservoir. She could not look back, didn't have _time_ , but she felt and heard the power as Zelda called upon it, saw golden light thrown onto the water in a brilliant flash.

"Keep going!" Zelda called behind her, and the Hylian girl's voice was breathless, nearly giddy. "I'm going to make a path for Sidon and Paya! Just keep moving!"

"Yes, Your Grace!" Gaddison said, cutting a path nearly perpendicular to the one she had been on before, sweeping in closer to Vah Ruta as the Divine Beast hurled its wrath at them. She was no longer afraid. She had to keep Zelda safe, but the fear that had been layered on top of that duty had given way to something else.

* * *

The water was filled with a series of low _thumps_ as the ice blocks exploded and then Sidon shot toward Vah Ruta, _truly_ pouring on the speed, and Paya thought in a distant way that he had more in common with a bird in flight than with a fish. She had not taken a breath in so long that she feared she might forget how; a funny thing to think, a little joke meant to ease her fears as she felt her lungs burn and vision cloud.

"We're going in!" His words were as clear in water as they had been in the air. How could she understand him so well? "Be ready to swim!"

He breached, arcing into the air like a dolphin, and she drew a gasp of sweet, cool air. Her body screamed for more, but she knew that it would have to wait, to be satisfied with what she could give it; they were right next to Vah Ruta, and at this distance she saw that it was as large as a castle, as a _mountain_ , she could feel the power in its profile and in that moment understood how it had obliterated Ploymus. This wasn't fear, at least not as she understood it; it was awe, different from but akin to the awe that Zelda woke in her.

" _Jump!_ " he called to her, and she jumped. Enormous waterfalls fell from Vah Ruta's sides, between each of its shoulders, and into one of these she plunged.

She could not have named the force that surged through her then, whether it came from her armor or was a secret of her body that the armor merely unlocked. The water parted around her as she swam against the current; she fought the flow and gravity together, pulling herself up the stream as if it were ground. It was impossible, it didn't even make sense, it would mean that her body had never known how to swim at all and was only now realizing what it could do. To swim against a waterfall—a Zora might, but _she_ —

She leaped from the top of the falls, sailing high into the air above Vah Ruta, and with a gasp of perfect shock she saw the world laid out below her. Sidon looked up from the water, expectant and unsurprised but cheering, one fist raised in exultant salute, and near the water's edge Zelda was flashing with golden light as the hunks of ice evaporated, and the Zora traced wild patterns in the water as the Divine Beast's defenses whirled like a hailstorm above them, and below her the power generators of Vah Ruta pulsed and burned with a bright and sickly light. She reached the apex of her jump as she drew her bow, nocking a shock arrow in the same motion, and let fly. She watched the shock arrow as it fell, as thunder erupted from the spot where it struck the Divine Beast, as Vah Ruta trumpeted its rage and the light went out.

She dove, then, tucking her bow against her back as she plummeted back toward the water. She slipped in with nary a splash, the water parting around her as easily as air, and as she swam away from Vah Ruta the prince was next to her. She swam at the surface of the water and he matched her, and his exultation was infectious.

"Magnificent, Paya! A perfect shot!" Ice exploded over them as Zelda flashed in the distance. "Are you ready for another pass?"

In answer she latched onto his back, she who was as unsure of herself around him as she was any other young man, and he laughed again as he wheeled back toward Vah Ruta.

* * *

In his throne room King Dorephan suffered the torment that is unique to people of action who are not and _can_ not be allowed to act. His domain, the domain of his people of which he should be steward, was in real and grave peril; where was he? Useless king, who could not do battle on behalf of his people, who could do nothing while the brave and the foolish of his guard—many of them little more than children, all of whom he had seen grown up, not least his own son—risked their lives out of love for their people.

He was not a king given to melancholy, but some gravity in his expression had caused all of his advisors (even Muzu) to excuse themselves. So, today he was not merely useless; he was also wholly and utterly alone.

Or nearly, at least.

Mipha was still on the Divine Beast. He knew this truly; the Lightscale Trident, which he kept on her behalf, told that story. The chest in which it was kept sat next to his throne, and every day he would open it and check. Every day it was alight with the same brilliance that told him Mipha was still there. Still trapped. Still waiting.

"But not for me," he said to the empty room, his voice so low that there was no way to understand him even if he was heard. "For a hundred years I've prayed that some part of what I've wrought might be undone… that you might be free. Now the battle is upon us, Mipha. This very hour your brother seeks your release, and with him the princess of Hyrule, and so many warriors of hearts that would put myth to shame. Finally, we act… but not me. I am here, still, and all I can do is pray."

It was possible that he was not truly alone. There might always be somebody nearby that could see him; in truth, there almost definitely was. Let them, then. Let them see him as he took the chest in his hands, as he pressed his scarred forehead against it, as he stopped trying to fight his grief, as he ceased to be a king and was only a failure of a father to a daughter who should have had the world given to her.

"Forgive me, Mipha. Forgive me for not seeing what would happen, for not… not being able to stop it. For being helpless, here, while you have suffered for so long. For my grief, which has not helped you. For not being there for you now, fighting with your brother. For." He inhaled sharply, closed his eyes. He did not have pride, anymore, but he still had his shame. "For believing that I could protect you. Please forgive me."

He had not moved. Still, the latch of the chest opened. Still, as he lifted his head, the lid swung up. Still, a soft and beautiful light poured out over his face.

* * *

The third shock arrow struck home, and the sound was imperceptible against the din and the rain. The waters running off of Vah Ruta slowed to a trickle; Zelda's periodic flashes of golden brilliance coincided with the destruction of dozens of carefully selected hunks of mystical ice; the Zora swam over a wider area, and faster, their confidence bolstered. At the strike of the third arrow Sidon cheered, and the guards and soldiers cheered as they swam.

Whatever force was driving Vah Ruta, it could not compensate for the surgical precision that Zelda used in levelling the Sheikah Slate against it. Destruction of certain pieces of ice interrupted the flow of the rest of the extant weapons, making them less precise while more were manufactured. A more skilled pilot, familiar with the subtleties of Vah Ruta's systems and the extent of its powers, might have been able to fight off the attacking force without them getting so close, without losing three of the beast's power regulators.

This force, this _Blight_ , was not a subtle creature. It was turning before Sidon approached it; as Paya swam up the waterfall, it turned to face the edge of the reservoir and the Domain beyond. It shifted as the third shock arrow struck home. The Zora cheer went up as Vah Ruta lifted its great nose.

The red targeting light painted the interior of the reservoir, and Vah Ruta's capacitors charged with the rolling of thunder.

There was no more cheering.

* * *

"Hurry! _Hurry!"_ Paya did not need to say the words; they were an expression of solidarity in urgency. Sidon tore through the water with such force that it nearly tore her from his back, regardless of the armor she wore. More than telling him to hurry she was swearing that _she_ would, and she prepared herself to swim with all the power her body could muster.

She pushed the realities of the exterior world out of her mind, because everything depended on that. She ignored the building charge as Vah Ruta prepared to fire, blocked out the sound of the rain and the whirling of the ice, forced herself to even push away the thought of Zelda. She had to focus. She had to act perfectly.

Still. They would not make it in time, she knew. Not quite.

* * *

The world slowed to a crawl again, as the red light from Vah Ruta's mouth shone like a beacon for annihilation.

Zelda could easily trace the trajectory of the imminent blast (and it _was_ a beam, unlike the lesser weapons of the Guardians); it would start from Vah Ruta, evaporate an utterly meaningless amount of water, punch through the wall of the reservoir, and strike Zora's Domain beyond it. Most of the city would disintegrate; the remainder would buckle and plunge down more than a hundred meters. It might strike the ground before the reservoir broke and unleashed a flood that would sweep Hyrule barren all the way to the Gerudo Desert. There was a cone of death, starting at the break in the reservoir wall, engulfing all of Zora's Domain, and reaching out well into Central Hyrule, in which absolutely nothing would survive.

She and Gaddison, being directly in the path of the beam, would be instantly vaporized. Not a comforting thought, but at least they would not suffer.

In that space where her thoughts ran wildly quicker than any other person's, the princess and the goddess gave way to the amnesiac woman. She never considered failure, or giving up; without question she would act, even if that act came to nothing.

Did she have enough power to simply stop Vah Ruta from firing? She didn't know. Attacking the Malice that drove it was a dicey proposition and trying to shut down the actual firing mechanism might leave her too vulnerable. Could she block the beam with Hylia's power? If Hylia was that strong, was her awareness at all prepared to channel that strength without burning herself out? If she could, would she be able to contain the force of the beam, so it wouldn't destroy the reservoir anyway? If she did all of that perfectly, could the surrounding area _possibly_ survive the Calamity's retaliation?

The answer to each of those questions may well have been "yes"; but if even one of them was "no" then her attempt would kill them all. She discarded the possibility.

No, she was coming at it from the wrong angle, insisted the princess, the scientist. There were essentially two options available to them: block the beam from striking the wall or _redirect it_.

Redirect it? How? Force Vah Ruta to aim at her, perhaps, and lead the shot to a less catastrophic (but no less fatal, for her) direction? No, the thing wasn't aiming at her, its target was the Domain and Hyrule beyond.

 _Consider your tools_ , she chided herself. She had the power of the goddess and the Sheikah Slate, one of which she could only use just so much. The power that drove Vah Ruta, and the Divine Beast itself, were too enormous for Stasis to matter, even if she placed her strength into the rune. Like the Guardians, Vah Ruta was magnetically inert; she could pour enough of Hylia's power into that rune to lift a mountain and accomplish nothing at all. An empowered bomb _might_ do it, either by damaging the firing mechanism or by knocking Vah Ruta's aim out of alignment, but a blast of that magnitude would send shockwaves through the air and water that would pulverize everyone present...and might still destroy the reservoir, besides.

Only one option, then. She didn't know if it would work, but it was the only way she could act without guaranteeing their destruction. Now it was a question of degrees; she reached within herself, to the dark place where the power sat like a sun waiting to be born. She was not the amnesiac, or the princess, or even the vessel of the goddess; she was one woman, focusing all of herself down to this one narrow point, seeking nothing less than _surety_. With the incarnate's awareness she measured out her strength, seeking the perfect balance between efficacy and stealth.

 _There can be no_ balance _here, only precision. Too little and I fail; too much and I fail. I have to use the smallest amount that I am sure will work; that is our only chance._

With all of her focus, all of her intuition, she drew on the power. She poured it into the Sheikah Slate, which hummed in her hands and shone in blue and gold. She did not have to select a new rune.

 _Hylia, if you can hear me at all, guide me. Please. Whatever you need of me, I need you_ now. _Help me protect them. Help me protect us all_.

Zelda aimed at the space beneath Vah Ruta's chin, where crimson death stared out at them like the Calamity's own eye, and fired.

* * *

Sidon leaped, and Paya jumped from his back and into the waterfall. She heard a roar, not Vah Ruta's voice or the discharge of the laser but something else, something more immediately physical, and shut it out of her mind as she flew up the stream. It did not matter what it was. Nothing mattered except what she was doing.

A wall of white rose into the sky, filling a corner of her vision, and the roar was louder, and she did not see, did not hear. She sailed into the sky, bow free, arrow nocked. She did not hear Vah Ruta's scream, or its weapon as it discharged.

* * *

A white fist the size of a mountain, an iceberg born out of the waters of the reservoir, rose out the depths to smash into the underside of Vah Ruta's head. Ice exploded on contact with the Divine Beast, the tremendous pressure of the frozen wall colliding with the ancient machine sending off splinters of ice the size of houses. There was a moment where Vah Ruta held, implacable, immovable, the ice splitting under its neck and rising in twin spires on either side of its head—but the ice kept pushing, and rising, its roots reaching down to the floor of the reservoir, and from the depths of the waters did it _push_.

Vah Ruta bellowed, a strangled bugling sound, as the empowered Cryonis forced its head up. It fired its weapon.

The beam of blue death cut through the air above Zelda's head, passed close enough to the top of the reservoir to scorch the stone, and by scant degrees failed to obliterate Zora's Domain. The mountains to the southwest had a burning gouge cut out of them, and that gouge was forced upward as Vah Ruta's head was wrenched further and further back.

The fourth shock arrow hit home. The power regulator on Vah Ruta's shoulder darkened. The flow of water ceased, and the weapons-fire dwindled to a cylinder the width of a finger before winking out. The hundreds of flying cubes of ice fell back into the water and shattered as Vah Ruta went slack, the fullness of its weight resting against the iceberg—which, in a flash, also disappeared.

The Divine Beast sank down to its hips, undefended, momentarily dormant.

The cheer that went up from the gathered Zora was uninterrupted. Paya's voice was joined to theirs; Zelda collapsed against Gaddison's back, shaking, trying to hold in tears of relief. Gaddison offered her no words; she had seen how closely death passed them by, and how the Princess of Hyrule had diverted it. She reached up, laid her hand over the one clutching her left shoulder, trying to communicate through touch the depths of her thankfulness and her awe.

Past that there was no delay. All the gathered Zora converged on Vah Ruta.

* * *

Prince Sidon leaped up to the platform that jutted from the side of Vah Ruta. His heart was pounding in his chest, adrenaline running so thick in his blood that he felt as if he was seeing the world through a filter. Paya dropped off of his back and he slowly rose to his feet, feeling her armor and even the rain against his skin in a removed, remote sense. Whatever he was experiencing now, he knew that he was in a place beyond pain. How long would that last? Zelda had said there was a monster within the Divine Beast, one worse than the lynel by far. He hoped he still felt this way by the time they confronted it, that the thrill of battle was still on him.

It had to be thrill. If it wasn't a thrill then he would have to consider how he really felt, what had run through his mind in the moment when Vah Ruta's weapon had fired, how he had felt when the world was ending.

The guards and soldiers, including Gaddison, finally made their approach. He grinned his enormous grin and felt the joy he projected resonate in them, his facade turned genuine by the light in the eyes of his people. They were alive. They had made it. Things might still go wrong, but they would face new challenges as they presented themselves! No fear, then, not now, he would wrestle with that later. Gaddison swam close and Zelda, the savior of their people, was on her back, and Sidon's smile as he offered his hand to her was real indeed. She took it, and her grip was strong, and he helped her up onto the platform. She stood next to him as he turned to address his people.

"From here we must go on without you." None of them liked it, but all of them believed it for the best; save for his father, Sidon was the greatest warrior of the Zora; everyone knew that Paya had held off the lynel on Ploymus by herself; Zelda was Zelda. "You have all performed wonderfully, shown courage fit to honor our ancestors! Our work is not done, but now you must see to the Domain and ensure the safety of our people. We three will free the Divine Beast and return triumphant! Wait for good news from us!"

He did not seek a cheer; their victory was at hand but not yet achieved. Better that they saluted, that their eyes wandered between him and the two women he would accompany, knowing that he was not the whole of this mission. Not that any of them would need to be reminded, now.

Then Vah Ruta shifted, light returning to its body as it lifted itself out of the water. The guards beat their retreat, quick but unhurried, and Vah Ruta lifted the three of them up, up, the water falling away below them, and until this moment he had never realized how _enormous_ the Divine Beast really was. What an incredible device; how incredible that he should be aboard it, and to seek to help restore it to its use against the Calamity!

"My friends!" His address took in both Paya and Zelda, the former whose attention was locked on the latter and the latter who was working up her focus, perhaps even rallying her power for the battle ahead. Faced with the enormity of their devotion, of their courage, how could he do anything but be honest? "Thank you for coming this far for us. No matter what happens next, my people will never forget what the two of you have done on our behalf. Songs will surely be sung of what we've accomplished today!"

"There is still one battle ahead of us," Paya said, the mask she wore making it impossible to read so much of her expression but her eyes burning with determination and another quality he did not recognize.

"I have absolute faith in us." They had to know; he only hoped it would be a strength to them, rather than a burden. "I have absolute faith in _you_. You can face whatever is before us; nothing in all the world will stand against you, when you put yourselves to the task!"

"I have to save her. I have to make this right." Zelda's words were soft, nearly whipped away by the wind, but they cut to the heart of Sidon like a knife. He looked down at Zelda, and she was not looking _at_ anything; her gaze took in the horizon and beyond it, as if looking at a world that he could not. "There is so much… a _lifetime_ , that I can't remember. But I remember Mipha was good to me. I wish desperately to see her again, to help her as she helped me." She looked up, then, the intensity of her gaze arresting him (and Paya too, he thought). "As much as for Ganon, as much as for Hyrule, this is for her. We will set her free."

Over and over again, without ceasing, he was laid low by these women, by the depth of heart from which they spoke and acted. What could he say to that? Surely there was nothing equal to what he felt, no answer to the enormity of the gratitude and the awe and the admiration that filled him.

"Yes," he managed, because it was as much as he could say.

They three stepped together into the depths of Vah Ruta, the weight of their promises, their duty, and their hopes laying heavy in the air.

* * *

In another time, another life, where it was not the princess who woke up in the Chamber of Resurrection, the interior of Vah Ruta was spackled with patches of Malice, the leavings of the Blight as it struggled to grow while choked off from the source of its vitality. There was no interference with the workings of Vah Ruta, only in moving through it, and it would take an engagement with all of its systems to clear the infection, to free it from the influence of the Calamity. Each control node activated, purified by the use of the Sheikah Slate, would force the Blight further and further into a corner; the last would finally drive it into the open, and there it might be confronted. The Blight, cut off from the power of Ganon, would not actively seek its enemy out until forced to, and was utterly stunted in its growth for a century. A terrible enemy, made more destructive to its surroundings by circumstance, but less than it could have been.

This was not that life. This was not that time.

As Sidon, Paya, and Zelda stepped into Vah Ruta, they took note of their surroundings; to two of them they were alien, constructed of two-toned stone more long-lived and durable than metal, but to Zelda they echoed the shrines of the Sheikah monks on a grander, more purposeful scale. Water flowed through the cavernous chambers of Vah Ruta's interior, which was only the smallest part of what the Divine Beast housed within it. The hum of the machinery working deep beneath it, power fit to drive nations (or to level them), lent every step they took an almost dizzying weight.

Two presences filled the air of that place, alike in age and in urgency. One of them was restrained, calling to the gathered heroes as if from across a great distance; she cried out, investing all of her strength in an attempt to reach them, but they heard her not. Each of them, sensitive to her presence in a different way and to a different degree, only shuddered as they felt remote panic and fear wash over them.

If they could have heard her, perhaps they would have turned back; perhaps they would have pushed on, through her warnings. Perhaps a great number of things would have been different.

"Sidon! Zelda! Paya!" She knew them all, of course she did. "Please! You have to hear me!" But they did not.

The second presence noticed them, and the pressure of the air shifted. This one knew them, too; from memory, from an image of a girl carrying the goddess through a blasted wasteland, from the scent of the goddess's power hanging in the air.

"You have to run!"

Gates slammed shut at every entrance to the enormous chamber. The three looked about them; the prince hefted his spear, and the handmaiden drew her golden blade, and the princess sought down within herself.

There was a sound, like the roar of the Calamity in a higher register. Malice and the blight gathered, and the wind began to howl, pulling at the water that flowed through Vah Ruta. Those streams flowed through the air, twisting together into a spiral that drew in the black and the purple of the malice, forming a vortex which bellowed smoke that had no smell but crackled with arcs of dark magic.

"Please! _It's been waiting for you!_ "

The vortex slammed into the floor, and the wind thrown off of it was so strong that Zelda turned her face from it as Paya stepped between her and the emerging threat.

Then Paya's jaw fell slack beneath her mask, and Zelda stared in horror, and even Sidon was left without words, without encouragement, as his spearhead sank to drag against the floor.

The Malice coalesced into a massive, dark shape, which throbbed and pulsated like an enormous heart. That shape rose, it had only been hunched over seconds before, and when it moved its cloven hooves hit the ground with such force that Vah Ruta shook. Its face and torso were armored with stone plates stolen from Guardians, or possibly the Divine Beast, but beneath that armor was the thing itself, bipedal, easily six meters tall, each of its limbs thicker than a man's body and _lithe_ , lithe in spite of that, as if it had been built for swimming. On its head it wore a cyclopean mask made from a single armored plate, and from behind that mask swept out a crown of red hair that waved and hissed and danced like fire. Great, backward-sweeping horns rose from its head, and between those horns was nested a crown of darkness which ate at the light of the room. In its right hand it held a trident of blue light tinged with purple, and that weapon was as long as the beast was tall.

For a hundred years it had waited for them; for a hundred years, drawing on the source of its vitality, it had grown stronger. The resemblance it bore to its previous form was scant, as if the Blight of a century ago had been only the first stage in the construction of this: the death of promise, of duty, of hope.

They all knew it for what it was; there was nothing else that it could be. Still, it was only Zelda, filled with the voice of the goddess, who dared to speak its name:

"Ganon."

The Waterblight roared, and Zelda answered with the tolling of an enormous bell.


	15. Mipha

The Waterblight roared, and Zelda answered with the bell that rang at the dawning of the world. Entropic fire and radiant light clashed in the air between them, and the enormous shadow of the fully realized beast was thrown on the wall behind it.

Sidon struck first. Fear would not stay him.

He was a red blur in the air, his legs launching him explosively off the floor, his spear tracing a glimmering silver arc through the air. This was the thing that had killed his sister; he did not need to be told. He was now in that place beyond courage, beyond rage, where _surety_ filled him to the exclusion of reason. He saw the face of the beast (no, _monster_ , for it was so much more than a beast) turning toward him as he charged, and he cared not at all.

His lashed out with his spear, thrusting for the Blight's throat.

A flash of blue, a shower of sparks, and his thrust was turned away by the haft of the monster's trident. The spark of the weapons clashing threw a bright light on the face of the spawn of Ganon, setting the enormity of its horns into stark relief. It looked at him, and he knew that it saw his fear.

He pulled back in retreat, and the trident's head was in the space he had occupied half a heartbeat before. He smashed it out of the way with the head of his own spear, and that took all the strength in his body, sending shockwaves through him that reached mercilessly toward his spine. It didn't matter. The pain was nothing. The fear was nothing. The goal was before him, his sister's killer in the flesh, and there was only one possible answer.

Sidon let loose his battle cry, sinking back into the orthodox stance passed down among the Zora for tens of thousands of years, honed to gleaming perfection. His strength gathered, coiling in his muscles like eels. What he had unleashed on the lynel would be nothing compared to this; he could feel his limbs groaning under the strain of what he would demand of them.

Then the Waterblight, Ganon, sank into the same stance, and he understood that what he had felt before this moment had not been true fear. Behind Sidon, the golden light went out.

" _Zelda!_ " Paya's scream was sudden, shocked, pained, confused.

 _I can't look to them! I have to fight this thing! If it can use this stance, then-!_

"Paya! Whatever is happening, tend to Zelda! I will hold it back as long as you need!"

If she answered, he did not hear. He could not hear anything.

He lunged, as did the Waterblight, and the song of their spears would have drowned out Vah Ruta itself.

* * *

She had not been holding enough power to fight this thing; the same mistake, repeated. She was letting her fear dictate how deeply she would draw of the goddess's strength: fear of overwhelming herself, fear of the power erasing her sense of self, fear of the Calamity's burning eye turned upon her. That most of all; she did not remember the Calamity attacking her at the foot of Mount Lanayru, only what had come after. She had been running from that, running from _Ganon_ , the entire time.

 _But Ganon is already here_ , thought she, as the Waterblight's power slammed into her, and it was true. This thing may have only been a spawn of the true Calamity, but still it was _Ganon_ , and she felt the authenticity of its power as it smashed her into the floor.

The power filling her body protected her as the stone splintered and cracked from the impact, kept her from being crushed as the invisible hand of Ganon's hatred pressed hard against her head.

" _Zelda!_ "

Ah. She was letting Paya down again. The thought was distant, almost ridiculous, separated from the reality of her experience, but it was _true_ , too. All she did was make Paya afraid on her behalf. She had to stop doing that.

Sidon cried out from across a great distance, and Zelda realized she might really be hurt. She could not hear him.

 _Paya_ , she said, then realized she had _failed_ to say it. Zelda pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, lifted her head. "Paya."

"Yes!" Paya was next to her, plainly afraid to touch her, and she would have alleviated that fear, but she did not have time.

"I'm going to have to use my power to restrain that thing, or at least try to. I don't know if I'll be able to defend myself."

"You will not have to." Paya's sword was already in her hand, flashing with gold, and her shield shimmered in answer. Then she was standing with her back to Zelda, facing the Blight, sinking down into a ready stance. "I swear it."

"Thank you," she said, with the last of her physical strength, and then she dove inward, down, down into the power. She could not use it all; she was going to have to push, and even without trying to kill it she would need at least as much strength as she had used against Vah Ruta. Praying it would not be too much she sank down, away from the sound of spears ringing against one another.

* * *

To thrust, slash, weave, parry, swipe, retract, stringing all of these motions together as a single unending movement, a repeating dance that had no discernible pattern, was as much as Sidon could do; in every moment, with every motion, it pushed his body to its utmost limit. And the Waterblight was matching him for every stroke.

His own eyes could not keep up with it; his body knew the dance, but it was more than he could track. That the monster could see it, could _match_ it…

Steel rang against hard light, the sound like a hailstorm on a metal roof, their weapons clashing between them five times a second, more, the cacophony resounding and building in the narrow confines of that chamber, until he thought it would deafen him, maybe deafen them all. All the flashes between them as the silver head of his hooked spear was deflected by the point of its trident, and he looked at its face, saw that it was not watching _him_ , that its enormous eye was focused on his hands, on his spear, tracing the arc of his motions and answering them in kind. What more could it do if it were not limited to merely reacting? What _was_ this thing?

His arms screamed, his shoulders and his back and his chest beginning to seize; how long had he kept this up? Fifteen seconds? Twenty? How much longer could he make it last before he cramped, before he was skewered on the end of that blasphemous weapon? How long before he died just as his sister did?

As if hearing his thoughts, the Waterblight looked at him, locking eyes across the lengths of their spears. Whatever face it had was hidden behind its mask, but was… was it _smiling_? Was it responding to him?

 ** _Shall I tell you how she died?_** The Calamity's voice was soul-blasting, piercing through his skull, sinking tendrils into his very thoughts, oh it _hurt_. **_Do you wish to know where she took her last wound?_**

He tried to shut his mind against it, to continue the dance, but the pain in his thoughts made the pain in his body feel like _nothing_ , he did not know how he could keep his balance, _was this what his sister had been against_?

 ** _Would you know whose name she called out at the end? Will you guess? Your father, perhaps? The hero, who she loved?_**

The dance wavered, he could feel the intricate construction of patternless fighting beginning to unravel, and it took all of his power to keep it going, not to fuel his body but to protect his _concentration_ , he had to fight, he could not fail, he could not stand beside these heroes in the place where his sister had died and fail! He could not fail them! He _would not fail them!_

 ** _Or perhaps she wept for you, her brother, who she could no longer protect. Do you think that's what it was? Did Mipha cry out for you, Sidon?_**

His left arm lead improperly for a single thrust; he was off his intended trajectory by a matter of degrees. He retracted a tenth of a second too slowly.

The Waterblight swiped to the side, striking the body of Sidon's spear, sending it flying upward with such force that Sidon's arms were lifted over his head, his guard blasted wide open.

His eyes had not been able to trace the clashing of their weapons, so it must have been with deliberate slowness that the Waterblight drew back its trident, sinking into an attacking stance, both hands wrapped around the haft. Yes, he realized. It wanted him to see death coming.

* * *

How much of the power had she gathered? She could not say, precisely; she was not entirely sure that she cared. The Waterblight's attention was all on Sidon, perhaps thinking her broken; if so, then it was underestimating her as badly as she had underestimated it.

Paya stood over her. She had faith that she would be safe for as long as it took to gather the power.

How much would it _take_? Was the gathered amount equal to the task? She knew that she could not use it all; she did not know how much all of it _was_. But it had to be _enough_. If it wasn't enough then they would die, and everything would end regardless.

The Malice radiated from the Blight like an echo of the Calamity itself, but … there was a limit to it. It had fed off its master for a century, growing strong, but it was not boundless. She had to get inside of its guard, hit it with enough force to shut down its connection to the true Ganon.

She plunged herself into the goddess's power, drawing it into herself. How much? _How much?_

 _Enough to match it_ , she thought, of one mind. She was awash with it, glowing with it, holding it in a place so deep that it would not show in her body.

Its focus was on Sidon. It did not know she was preparing. Good.

Of her power she made a spear and, from her place on the floor, thrust it into the very heart of the Waterblight's being.

* * *

The beast's shoulder tensed to thrust, and then the sun dawned at its feet.

Sidon's head cleared as the creature of Ganon was enshrouded in a pillar of radiance, and the pain of its scream was genuine, ear-splitting. The prince could not say how, but he knew that whatever had just happened—whatever Zelda had just done—had reduced the demon in some way. The light faded, and the Blight looked away from him, past him, toward the form of Zelda behind him.

He moved instantly, stepping in hard as he thrust. It did not see him coming in time to stop his spear from plunging into its chest.

Instantly, _truly_ instantly, its hand wrapped around the shaft of his spear. Zelda's golden power crackled over it, its entire body shook, but when he tried to pull his spear free he could move it not at all. It turned its single burning eye toward him, and he looked up into its face framed by horns and fire and a crown of darkness.

Ah. He'd still managed to make a mistake.

Slowly, so that he could hear the blade of the spear gliding over flesh that slid back together as the foreign object was removed, the Waterblight forced the weapon out of its chest.

He shifted the grip of his left hand, sliding it up the length of the shaft until it nearly touched the Blight's own, and with that leverage he twisted the spear in the Blight's grip, trying to wrench it away. The spear turned until it stood as a barrier between them—and then the Waterblight dropped its own spear, wrapping its left hand around Sidon's right. He shoved, and because of his better leverage he felt the Waterblight's weight begin to shift.

Then it squeezed, and he heard the bones in his right hand pop and break.

* * *

More of the power, more, she had to keep it flowing, interrupting the Waterblight's connection to the Calamity was an _ongoing_ act and she could not stop unless she wanted it back at its full strength. She couldn't turn her attention outward, there was so much to do here, she could feel the Calamity as if it were in the room with them, could feel as its attention wandered away from its battle with the Hero—

A voice called to her; it was faint, distant, indistinct. But it was there, in the place beyond sound.

* * *

His right hand broke; the pain of all those bones snapping was brilliant, hot, _white_ , he had never thought of pain as having a color before but he experienced it as white, like nothing else he had ever felt.

But he was more than his pain. He was the prince of the Zora; he had been schooled in combat, and he was the master of his own body. He released his left hand's grip on his spear, held his fingers straight and rigid like a knife, and then plunged his hand directly into the wound in the Waterblight's chest.

The flesh there was hot and painful to touch but his claws tore at it, he could feel blood and ichor gushing there, and he dug his claws in before pulling back, ripping open wider the wound.

The Waterblight howled, and he took some satisfaction in the sound before it released his spear and smashed him to the floor with both of its fists.

* * *

"Who's there?" she called in that dark place where voices were only echoes, where souls spoke directly to one another. She had not heard a voice here, a _true_ voice, since Hylia had said they would speak no more. Was this Ganon? Was the Calamity deploying some trick, some subterfuge?

From a great distance, desperately, in pain, she heard a call:

"Zelda!"

No. Not Ganon. Still she funneled power into the Waterblight, unaware that it was beating Sidon with its fists, and then she sought for that voice, the person that had called to her.

 _Oh, Hylia_ , thought she, _it's the same presence I felt in Vah Ruta before. It's her!_

* * *

The first blow came after it had released his arms; he saw it coming enough to try to move. Because of this its great fists came down on his back, but the angle was imperfect, a great deal of the impact lost as the blow skid across his diaphragm, tearing the skin in its wake. If it had hit squarely, he would have been crushed and died almost instantly; as it was he hit the floor with a dislocated shoulder and two broken ribs, the gills on his left side bruised so badly that he did not know if he would be able to swim for days.

As if he would get out of here.

 _I_ will _get out of here_ , he thought in defiance to himself. _I am the prince of the Zora! Son of Dorephan! Brother to Mipha! There is no room for surrender, even in the face of death!_

So he rolled, and the blight's fists slammed into the floor where he had been moments before, the force of the impact bouncing him into the air. He landed on his feet, ground his teeth together as he wrenched his arm back into socket, the pain blinding him for a quarter of a second, but he was already moving, his left hand stretched out for his spear.

The Blight saw him coming and swung and only by his training did he slide under the blow, maneuvering as if he were swimming around a great stone, and the air of its passage was cool on his skin.

His hand wrapped around his spear, and with a dancer's grace he wheeled, bringing its head around in a flash, burying it once more in the same wound he had made before. It sank deeper this time, much deeper, and he drew a grim satisfaction from that.

Then a great left hand wrapped around his face, and a great right hand smashed into his chest.

* * *

The distance of nations was as nothing in that space; she had to travel through interference, layers of Malice and hatred and fear that had been caked on top of each other for a century, she was an arrow plunging through armor, a thief sneaking into a prison.

"Zelda!" The voice, closer now, wild in her hope, her fear, her pain.

"Mipha! I'm coming! Please, wait for me!"

But Mipha did not wait; Zelda felt the Champion heave against her bonds, and in that soundless place Zelda recoiled in surprise; she had thought Mipha _within_ the bonds, a prisoner within a fortress, but as Mipha rattled the chains that bound the energy of her life the very background of the universe began to shift. She was not within the prison; she was _beneath_ it, the continent on which it was built.

* * *

Paya did not move to help Sidon; think not ill of her. Without knowing that the beast hid no more tricks, she could not be sure to keep Zelda safe unless she stayed by her. Forgive her the requirements of her duty; know that she screamed for Sidon, nearly left her place, as the hero of the Zora fought with tooth and claw against the beast that had laid nations to waste.

* * *

He could not say what had broken in his chest, or what had come loose in the other places inside of him. He tasted blood, knew that his internal bleeding must be very bad. He was not as frightened by that as he might have been, he found.

 _Yes. When facing your end, it is best to proceed as if it means little to you. Don't let it see your pain! Let it know that you will be victorious, no matter how terrible the cost!_

" _Is that all you can manage!?_ " With the mangled ruin of his right hand he swung up with the butt of his spear, striking the inside of the Waterblight's wrist, breaking its hold on his head. He thrust again, but the motion was too slow, and the beast slapped the blow aside so that the head of the spear opened a new gouge on its chest as it tore off-course.

He pulled back again, and so did the Blight. He thrust with his spear; the Blight leaned into it, catching the blow in the same spot on its chest, and deeper still the head sank.

Then its fists crashed together, with him caught between them. His upper arms broke with a sound like wood being split. He did not scream. He did not drop his spear.

It reached for him and he slipped beneath its grip, slamming his body into its own, launching himself up from the floor so that he smashed into its armored face with his head. Its head was tilted upward, and he sank his teeth into its throat.

* * *

It was not fear that she felt from Mipha, not truly; not fear, nor pain, nor a need for release, nor torment; those _were_ all there, but they were branches of the same essential thing, the root of the Zora princess's entire being: love.

 _How can one person contain so much_? _How can she have so much still, after so long, through so much pain? How can I feel that love taking in everyone around her?_

Why could Zelda feel it so strongly directed at herself?

She drew on even more of the power, and with it she struck at the bonds of the Calamity. They shattered, made into nothing and less than nothing, shards of Malice spinning away into oblivion. But still Mipha was not free; there was something there, something larger still, that her perspective could not take in. She didn't have time to adjust! She didn't have time to do anything!

"Mipha! What do I do?"

"Open yourself to me!" The Champion called across the dark.

* * *

The taste of its blood was hot and acrid in his mouth and he bit down harder, he would tear its throat out and see it drown in its own blood, let it carry the scars of their battle into the underworld and know that it was he who had marked it—

It grabbed hold of him with both of its hands and tore him away, caring not at all that its neck ran rivers of black and purple in doing so.

He spat its blood—and his—into its red eye.

"So. Will you be surrendering, now? Or shall I instruct you further?"

The world spun as it hurled him across the room. He had no sense of weight, or even speed, only of turning slowly in space. How strange things looked, as if no particular object was related to any other at all, and everything that he had assumed concrete was an arbitrary coincidence.

He hit the wall and there was another sound like wood being snapped. His spear was still in his hand. That was worth something, wasn't it? He hadn't lost his weapon, in the end. Seggin would be proud of him.

Sidon slid to the ground. It wasn't until he saw his legs splayed out on the floor in front of him that he realized he could not feel them. He almost laughed at the cliché; how odd, that he had not felt his back break.

The Waterblight's trident, hurled by its master, plunged into his chest. Its three tines drew a line from his left pectoral down to his solar plexus. Blood exploded from his mouth; he could not draw breath. Most disturbingly, perhaps, was that it did not really hurt.

The trident disappeared in a flash, coalescing in the same hand that had hurled it. Good trick, that. He should really try to learn it.

Ah, and now it was getting dark, and quiet. He could barely see the streak of obsidian and silver and gold that was Paya hurling herself at the Blight.

* * *

"I don't know if I can! This isn't like connecting to Purah! _You_ aren't like Purah!"

Was this what a Champion's heart was like? This enormity of personhood, of self, so intense that it beggared the imagination? Was it how Mipha had stayed sane after being trapped here by the Calamity for a hundred years? Was this what the _hero_ was like—could Mipha have been the Hero, even, if she had chanced upon the sword that sealed the darkness?

 _Why am I so small compared to her? Why am I so small compared to them all?_

And then—then Mipha was there, with her, in the dark, of scale with her. Something inside of her threatened to break, the barrier that held back her memories and the ancient pains of her heart, and she reached out with a hand that existed only in symbol.

Mipha's fingers interlaced with hers, and with her other hand she cupped Zelda's cheek. Her golden eyes were sad, and hopeful, and urgent.

"Please. You can do this. I believe in you. I always have."

Who was she to refuse?

She opened herself, becoming as vulnerable as she had ever been with another person.

Mipha was a glacier, a continent of a soul that would flatten mountains as it moved across the world. She was so cold, and clean, and _powerful_ , and for one moment Zelda was afraid and then she banished the fear from her heart, and—and it wasn't so cold.

* * *

In his throne room Dorephan rose from his place on the floor, his daughter's trident in his hand. He could feel the change in the air, a hint at some goings-on that dealt with powers beyond his understanding. More than that, though, he could feel _her_ , an echo of her, a voice that spoke to his heart as if he was recalling how to hear after being deaf for a century.

He strode from the throne room, trident in hand, and the Domain was hushed in his passing. The rain had thinned, though it had not yet stopped. That reflected nothing, told of nothing. Something was happening.

Muzu was outside of the room; perhaps he had seen as Dorephan prayed for forgiveness. Neither of them would ever mention it to the other. Still, when he saw his king leaving the center of the kingdom, his eyes went wide in their deep-set sockets and he looked up at the king whose _grandfather_ he had served under, and he asked in the way that only close friends can ask of their lieges:

"Where are you going?"

"To Mipha," the king replied, and on he walked.

Muzu said nothing; perhaps he did not understand. Perhaps he saw the trident in his king's hand, and some essential knowing was imparted to him. It did not matter.

The rain fell on the Zora.

* * *

The heat left Sidon as his blood pooled on the floor, and he shivered at the cold.

Dying was not so bad, really. Getting to this part had been quite painful, of course, he hadn't _relished_ any of it, but the act itself? It wasn't some great thing. Rather like falling asleep. The world had a dream-like quality to it, and he realized in a resigned way that it was oxygen deprivation to his brain that made the room seem so dark and the clash of Paya's sword and shield against the Waterblight's trident seem so distant. He did wish that he could help her, still; even working together they probably could not have killed it, but if they protected Zelda for long enough to marshal her strength… ah. It did not matter now. He had done as much as he could, and the cold and the quiet were the reward for his foolishness.

Then the cold was gone, and light and warmth blossomed inside of him. Gentle hands were laid on his face, and that warmth spread throughout all of him, as if he were immersed in it, and he did not know why but tears were running down his face. What was this? Nostalgia? Now? At the end?

His legs itched as the wounds on them closed.

He realized he could feel his legs only moments after, and his eyes flew open, still half-seeing.

 _My arms. My back. My… my chest!_

Flesh knit back together without pain, blood restoring itself as if it had never been spilled, and he took a deep, hungry gasp of air with both of his blessedly working lungs. The rush of oxygen made him dizzier, he could not see at all, but now his hands went up to the ones that were on his cheeks, and those hands were wet with his tears and he did not remember her, but he remembered this warmth, the soothing of his pains, a love like a mother's.

"Mipha?"

"Ssshhh." And it _was_ her voice, it _was_ her, "rest, Sidon. You've fought well."

He forced himself to see, willing light back into his eyes as his heart pumped fresh blood, and… he did not know what he was seeing. It was Mipha, but it was Zelda, too, as if they were interposed into the same space. They were radiant, but instead of the gold of the goddess's strength the light was blue. Mipha's power. He blinked, and it did not go away: Mipha and Zelda at once, but it was Mipha, it was _her_.

"Wait… Mipha, please, wait, you can't fight that thing, it—" The look she gave him unearthed memories he had not recalled in decades, and he fell silent.

She released his face, and even though he wanted to hold onto her, her hands slipped out from under his, reaching down to the spear he had dropped onto the floor. "I must borrow this."

"Wait! Please, wait!" And she did wait, looking at him with eyes the color of sunset, and all at once he realized he did not know what he wanted to say. He had never even dreamed of this moment, never allowed himself to hope. "I can't lose you again, sister! Not when I've just found you!"

She smiled, and he remembered swimming up a waterfall, how her smiling face had been waiting for him as he ascended, how he had been reaching out to her.

"Little Sidon… you will never lose me."

* * *

The Waterblight's intelligence was like the intelligence of a storm, or a mountain, rather than a beast; to describe it would be like describing the intent behind continental drift. Only its actions could be read and interpreted according to a human understanding of motive. Such a strange thing, Ganon.

The woman in obsidian armor was a flashing flurry of silver and gold, as fast as the spear work of the prince. Her sword traced out golden arcs in the air, flashing, and all at once she had slashed at its wrists, the insides of its elbows, its throat, and she retreated as it thrust with its trident, her movements so lithe and fluid that she was more like water than even the Zora were.

Blood sprayed from the wounds she had opened in it. These were meaningless, and would close of their own accord soon, already spitting and burning with Malice.

She came in again, lower, aiming for the tendons anchoring its legs, and that is when the golden power of the goddess restraining the Waterblight winked out like a candle.

The Malice erupted from it, and its full faculties were restored. It saw Paya ( _her name is Paya and she loves Zelda and she will die for that love I will see her die for it_ ), the from-her-body motion she would use to cut through its heels.

It smashed the butt of its trident into the floor, and Paya's blade skidded off it. She rebounded immediately, launching herself backward. The Blight reached out with one hand and with the invisible hand of the Calamity it struck at her, seeking her very thoughts, the foundation of the being that sought to harm it. Yes, it could feel her love for Zelda, and it would hold that love in its hands and pull it apart like a spider.

It must have been instinct that made Paya raise her shield, it must have been instinct that saved her life by a matter of degrees as the stored power of Hylia deflected the Blight's reach, burning it at the touch. Well enough. It would get behind the shield, eventually. It had nothing but time, and she was only a person. It thrust out with its spear, watched as she strained with her entire body to twist around the stroke before leaping into the air and backward, flipping. She landed on her feet, sword and shield in hand, and in her eyes was a determination that made the Blight reach out with its hand, as if to pluck out those shining red orbs.

There was another light in the room, and it was new—no, not new, but _young_ , younger than the goddess, younger than its ancient grudge, and despite that youth it was _familiar_. This was the light of a hundred years ago, light that had been turned against it, light that burned inside of the soul it had bound here, light that it had ignored for a century.

It turned to the fallen prince, and the shifting of its weight was like thunder in the quiet of the room.

With its one eye it looked at the back of the woman who stood over the prince, and who could say what it saw? Did it see an interposing of two princesses, the champion and the goddess, as Sidon had? Did it see her as she really was? Did it see her at all?

But it must have seen the spear she was holding in her hands. Legs too long, torso too short, but still she held it with perfect grace, perfect ease, with an intimate familiarity born of a life given to one purpose, of a century spent in meditation on defeat.

It must have seen as she looked over her shoulder at it, as her golden eyes burned with a terrible light that Ganon itself had never known.

It hurled the Malice at her, striking at the very fabric of her soul; after being trapped for a hundred years, perhaps it expected her to disintegrate, to be banished like a ghost made to hear holy words.

But its power parted around her, smashing into her healing light and fizzling out.

Did it know fear? If it did not, it knew _her_ , and Paya was forgotten.

She walked toward it, spear in hand, and it sank into a defensive posture, reading her footsteps, her reach, the relative length of her limbs. When she crossed into the threshold of _its_ reach, where its spear might kiss her flesh, she would die.

Just beyond this point she stopped approaching; she must have read the distance, too. Still, it waited. I was deathly patient, and its range was far greater than hers. She had to get inside, or she could not hope to strike.

"A century ago you found me here," Mipha (Mipha Mipha _Mipha_ _ **MIPHA**_ ) said to the darkness, and did it know her, understand her words? "A century ago you found me in the heart of where I thought myself most safe; a century ago you found me with hands empty. Will you fare so well when I am armed?"

She stepped forward. It struck, a perfect thrust aimed directly for her heart.

The trident pierced only empty air. The Blight looked down.

She was in front of it.

She was already pulling back, spear wet with blood and fire.

Ganon screamed, its perforated chest spewing pain and blood and life out of a dozen new wounds.

* * *

Paya had never seen anyone fight like this; she had never even heard stories of it, not any that did them justice. _These were the Champions?_

Mipha _stayed_ inside of the Ganon's reach, spear flashing like lightning bolts dancing in a thunderhead, her brother's oversized weapon alive in her hands, and it was impossible to count the blows as the Waterblight's torso continuously exploded in new wounds that could not close fast enough to keep up with the ferocity of her assault. It staggered backward, its enormous hooves beating the floor into gravel, and for every step it took Mipha (Zelda, but Mipha) took three, her spacing studious and perfect.

The blight thrust with its trident and Mipha swung up with her brother's spear at an angle that used the Blight's own strength against it, blowing open its guard as completely as it had blown open Sidon's. Even as it was struck over and over again in its chest and shoulders it swung its free arm at her, meaning to smash her to the floor as it had done to Sidon.

She answered the swing with the point of Sidon's spear, impaling the Waterblight through its forearm, and it screamed as she turned, using the momentum of its punch and all the force of her body to _heave_ , and Paya's jaw fell slack as the Blight sailed across the room to crash into the floor, the new hole in its arm spewing fire from both sides.

The thing scrambled to its feet, roaring like a wounded animal, and Paya found her senses and dashed toward Sidon, whose wounds had closed but who was still too dazed to rise. She had to take her eyes off the Blight to do it, but it did not care about her at all; Mipha was walking toward it, spear-point held level to the floor, and nothing in the world mattered outside the two of them.

Paya stopped in front of Sidon and then turned back to the fight, sword at the ready; if she could not defend Zelda (and in this moment she knew that it was beyond her, far beyond her) then she would keep the Prince safe, would pray for his forgiveness in failing him earlier.

"Incredible," the prince said, as his sister clashed with the beast that had killed her. Paya said nothing, the words vanishing on her tongue.

She could not see their spears; past the elbow she could not see their _arms_ , and their upper arms were blurs of motion attached to shoulders and torsos that shifted with such speed that staring for too long would give her motion sickness, while their feet remained rooted firmly in one place.

The space between the fighters could be described as two semi-spheres that pressed against each other; on the Waterblight's side the space was filled with the blue light of ancient weaponry and the roaring dark of the malice, its weapon leaving streaks of these colors in the air so that before it was a storm of light and dark; on Mipha's side there was light, and steel, and the space that came between her blows warping as the air rushed in to occupy the spaces that her weapon was moving through. Steel struck light, and it was impossible to say what was happening in that space between them, how they read each other or—

Then the Blight took a step back and Mipha was inside again, Ganon's guard blasted open, and she shoved her brother's spear into its chest in the same place where her brother had wounded it. There was a glint of silver behind the beast as the weapon pierced it through.

Again Ganon screamed, and now it called upon the stolen powers of Vah Ruta, swinging with its arm—and when it swung, the waters in the chamber flew through the air in a killing stream, as large as the Waterblight itself, and it struck the spot where Mipha had been standing, shattering the stone, punching through the flooring of Vah Ruta's interior like paper.

But Mipha was not struck, her eyes were on the beast, and the beast drew the water in toward itself, the princess held back for half of a heartbeat—and the entrances to the room flew open, and a spout of water erupted beneath the Waterblight's feet, its appearance like a cyclone. The spout roared into life, a stream that carried its master away, and the Waterblight fled the chamber, rushing out the exit to the south.

"Zelda!" Paya screamed, but it was not Zelda who heard her, and Mipha leaped headlong into the stream, swimming through the swirling water to give chase to the Blight.

* * *

The royal guard of the Domain did not retreat to the city; they were loyal, but loyalty went deeper than obedience. Out of love for their people and fear for their prince and the heroes that he traveled with they stood on the shore of the reservoir, spears in hand, keeping quiet vigil as Vah Ruta stood still in the waters.

They said nothing to each other as the lights inside of the Divine Beast shifted from blue and purple to gold, or as the thunder of the distant rainclouds mingled with the sounds of battle from inside of Vah Ruta. They could not know that their prince was mortally wounded; if they had, they would have gone to him, died for him, died for the Zora. They could not know. So: they were silent, and watchful.

Then a spout of water, a stream that twisted in the air like a dragon, roared out of Vah Ruta. At the head of the spout was a monster like they had never seen before, all darkness and fire and even from that distance, at that speed, they could see its back-turned horns and the crown of fire on its head and they knew it for what it was:

"Ganon." It was Gaddison who spoke the name, but all of them nodded their understanding. But if Ganon had been in the Divine Beast, and now it was _out_ , then what of the Prince? What of Paya? What of Zelda?

Then a red flash shot up the stream, swimming, redolent with a soft blue light, shining silver spear in hand, giving chase through water and sky. The prince? No. It was too small to be the prince. But the coloring was the same, and—

Gaddison dropped her spear, which clattered against the stone of the reservoir, and no one noticed.

They all watched, arrested, as the stream of water drew wild shapes in the air, forming a highway of water that made a long, sweeping series of loops around Vah Ruta. They watched as the spawn of the Calamity fled from their princess.

* * *

Away from Vah Ruta, above the reservoir, she caught it.

It turned to her in the stream, not truly swimming now, letting the current push it, and met her with its trident. She slipped in past it, far faster in the water than in the air, and it used its arm to protect its vitals. Sidon's spear kissed its arm and got a rose of blood and fire in return, and it could not flee from her here.

Its eye shone, and a red light shone _from_ it, focusing directly on her, because here, in the water, it would not need to hit her directly. Its capacitors charged as the borrowed power of the Guardians hummed inside of it.

Mipha stabbed it directly in the eye.

It shrieked in pain, its body going momentarily limp, powerful arms and legs swept back by the rush of the water that was now running out of control, without direction.

The ancient weapon discharged partially, and Sidon's spear shattered in her hands. Inside of her, Zelda turned over with something between rage and fear.

The Blight recovered, saw that she had no weapon.

Mipha leaped from the stream, diving for the waters of the reservoir below. The Blight bellowed, its roar almost laughter, and streaked after her.

* * *

They saw her dive into the water, spear gone, and saw as the Waterblight dove in after her. The pair darted through the vastness of the reservoir, the red blur looping between Vah Rut's enormous legs, the purple blur following it. Watching them swim was almost as arresting as watching them fight.

Only almost.

As a body the warriors of the Zora readied their spears; they did not know what they were seeing, but they knew that it _looked_ like the princess under attack by Ganon. So, they would fight, and they would die, and it would be good to die for her, she who they had not protected a century past.

Then the King was among them, at the water's edge, and in confusion and awe they looked up at him, at the vastness of his body, his heaving chest, the tears streaming down his face. In his right hand he held the Lightscale Trident.

None spoke to him; none dared to gainsay this moment, as his eyes fell on his lost child. He knew it was her, and he understood that she was not physically there, that she was dead, and in his grief he communicated to them that truth. Who would know his daughter, if not her father?

He drew a deep and mighty breath.

" ** _MIPHA!_** " It was the cry of a grieving father's heart, and over the rain, over the storm, over the sounds of battle, it echoed across the reservoir.

He pulled back the spear with his right arm, taking only a moment's aim, and with all his strength he hurled his daughter's weapon to the sky above Vah Ruta. It traced a glittering arc through the air, and under the echo of Dorephan's grief one could almost hear it singing.

* * *

" ** _MIPHA!_** "

Tears, then, the tears she had not known she still had. She knew that voice; who would know her father, if not his daughter?

So, too, she knew her trident.

The Blight was behind her as she rocketed toward Vah Ruta, reaching for her as she shot up the waterfall. With all her strength, all of her speed, she leaped from the waterfall, tracing an arc of light and water high in the air above her Divine Beast. She looked down, saw the Blight explode from the waters beneath her, and it was holding its own trident in its hands, its cracked eye gleaming at her.

She looked to the shore. Oh. There he was: her father was on the wall, waiting for her. Waiting for her to come home.

She extended her hand, closed it on the Lightscale Trident. The force of catching her father's throw sent her spinning, and she let it, controlling the arc, turning, facing down toward the Blight. It saw her, then. Saw her spear.

 _Princess. Please be ready._

 _Mipha, I don't know if I can do this! I don't know if I can_ use _that much power!_

 _You can. Use as much as it takes._

There was no more argument; like a thunderbolt she fell toward the Divine Beast. It thrust at her with its trident; with the force of her spin she slammed her weapon into its own, twisted, _wrenched_. The Waterblight's arms were sent wide, its grip broken, and its trident spun through the air, lost.

The Lightscale Trident plunged into Ganon's chest, and with her whole body she shoved it deeper, seeking its heart. The Waterblight screamed, and together they fell.

 _Now, Zelda! Now!_

From beneath her consciousness, from within the space that she had been allowed to occupy, a bell began to toll. Light blossomed inside of her, light far grander and more awesome than the light she could make, and—

* * *

They saw the figure in the air stab the Waterblight in the chest, saw them fall toward Vah Ruta. The king said nothing, prayed for nothing. He was past words, now, and his gathered guards walked that strange country with him.

The power of the goddess exploded in the sky, more than they'd ever seen, brightening the day like a new and more terrible sun, turning the figure of Ganon into a shrieking comet as it plummeted toward Vah Ruta.

It struck, passing through the opening in the Divine Beast's back, and there was no sound—just a pillar of light reaching into the heavens, bright and warm and impossible to look away from, turning the entire reservoir into an image of paradise.

* * *

In the depths of Hyrule Castle, locked in its ceaseless battle with the Hero, the Calamity felt the death of its Blight like a physical blow. It shrieked, echoes of the pain of the goddess's power spreading through its body like ripples in a pool, and it felt where the goddess was, where _all_ of that hated strength was seated. Though locked in battle it pooled its strength and hurled it from the parapets, its own screaming comet of death that traced oblivion over the sky of Hyrule.

* * *

Zelda came back to her body, staring down at the trident her hands, then at the surface on which she stood—only it was not a surface, it was the Blight, and it was _very_ dead. Its body smoked, all vitality gone from it, now little more than a husk that had been burned hollow by the power she had hurled against it.

It crumbled beneath her, into dust and less than dust, and then she felt the Calamity's fury like a physical force.

 _We can teleport away_ , she thought, looking to Paya who was running toward her, to Sidon who had fought his way to his feet. But no, they could not, because the blow struck now would bring doom no less absolute than Vah Ruta's own attack. _I have to stop it. I have to stop it_ now _!_

She reached within herself, she was still holding all the power she had used to kill the Waterblight (it had barely drained her at all, how much power did she _have_?) but she needed more, the light erupted from her and her power filled her ears and Paya's approach stopped as her relief shifted over to shock.

" _RUTA!_ " Mipha's voice, coming from everywhere, greater than the roar of the power.

Then the floor heaved beneath them, and the three of them fell.

* * *

Death arced over Hyrule, its trajectory taking it toward the Eastern Reservoir, which it would destroy at a blow and blot out the light forever.

Vah Ruta's eyes and servos and power generators glowed blue as it turned in the water, trumpeting defiance as it faced to the west. Lowering it legs to tilt its head up, it raised its trunk, the red targeting laser painting an arc of devastation in the sky. The charge built.

The Calamity's attack crossed the guiding beam. Vah Ruta fired.

A pillar of blue radiance filled the sky, parting the clouds and the waters, and light slammed into darkness.

There was an eruption without sound, an unleashing of power that would have leveled mountains. The wave of concussive force flattened grass directly below the explosion, the wall of wind pressing hard against the chests of every living thing for miles.

The storm of Blight and Malice and hatred and fury beat itself to uselessness against Vah Ruta's power, then was swept away.

The beam of light dwindled to nothing, and the wind died.

The rain ceased to fall on Zora's Domain.

* * *

As Vah Ruta settled beneath them, Paya and Sidon were both beside her, lifting her up, speaking so quickly and so vehemently that she could not hear them past the ringing in her ears. The fury was gone. Destroyed? She had let go of the power, of the goddess-sense, and now the world seemed very quiet.

"You did it!" Sidon's exultation was a physical thing, his arms pumping, and he beat his fist against his chest, which only minutes ago had had three gaping holes in it. "I couldn't—I've never seen anything like it! Even the stories don't tell of anything like what you just did!"

"Zelda," Paya said, and she was supporting her physically, draping one of Zelda's arms over her shoulders, and Zelda found herself grateful beyond words that she was unhurt. "How did you do that? What we saw, it was like—"

"It wasn't me," she said, and she could feel their eyes on her, the weight of their regard, their hunger for answers. "She was here, before we arrived. Mipha's been here for a hundred years. I had to reach out to her to fight it, but now that it's dead I think she's free. She should…"

The power gathered, a soft light that filled her with warmth, and they three looked to the center of the chamber, where motes of radiance swirled and coalesced.

"No," she said, with a voice that could not rise above a whisper.

Mipha did not stand before them—she floated, her feet not quite touching the floor, and she was lit from all sides by the ghost fires. The Zora princess smiled, and it was like a flower blossoming, but it was so sad, and that sadness echoed inside of Zelda as if she were an empty chamber and she _was_ empty and she felt the world crumble beneath her as she collapsed to her knees.

"No, no, no," because that word was all she had, and the Lightscale Trident clattered to the floor as she hid her face behind her hands, and neither Sidon or Paya reached for her. She heard Mipha approaching, footsteps that were not footsteps, and when that warm hand touched her arm something inside of her unknotted, loosened, fell slack, and the pain that swept through her was a pain that she had been hiding beneath her amnesia and it was all she could feel.

Mipha's arms wrapped around her, pulled her into a gentle embrace there on the floor.

"I thought you were still alive," Zelda said, and she could barely understand her own voice, she was sobbing now and couldn't hold it back as Mipha's hands stroked her hair. "I thought, I thought that you would be here, that you were trapped here but you were alive, and when we freed you you could go _home_ , that I wouldn't have failed you, that you would be _OK_ , I…"

She let her own hands fall away, rested her head against Mipha's shoulder, and the warmth of Mipha's healing power was flowing through her but it did not touch this ache, this regret, this _grief_. She could not stop sobbing, could barely breathe.

"I loved you so much! I loved you all so much and I failed you, I let… I thought I could save you!"

Mipha's words were soft in her ear, like the fingers stroking her head:

"You did, Zelda."

Ah, so there was more pain to unearth, then. It built inside of her, demanding release, obliterating thought, and she wailed as her grief crushed her.

"You did."


	16. The Hero and the Calamity

Two princesses there were in Vah Ruta: one who died for the other, and the other who wished desperately that she had been the one to make that sacrifice. Zelda's choked sobs had finally begun to taper off, receding to wounded whimpers as she leaned into Mipha's embrace, and Paya, alongside Sidon, had only been able to stand back and wait during this display of deep-set grief she had neither the knowledge nor the perspective to understand.

Sidon—Sidon who had fought the Waterblight with his spear and then with his bare hands, Sidon who had waited a century to find his sister again and was now confronted only with her ghost—stood watching like a sentry, and it was not just the particulars of his Zoran features that made his expression impossible for Paya to read. That he was able to be so patient now, that he was able to give Zelda space for a grief she only half-remembered, that he had not immediately run to his sister, all these things spoke to a fortitude of the spirit that Paya did not think she could ever possess. She was not shying away from him, now; maybe she would have if he looked at her, maybe the weight of his attentions would have sent her scurrying into the dark, but as it stood she found herself admiring him, his patience and his calm and his empathy. _This is why his people love him_.

"I have been trapped here since that day a century ago," Mipha said, as much to the two of them as to Zelda. "Many were the days where my heart began to waver, and I wondered if perhaps I would never be free… but you came for me. The three of you have made my hopes into a reality."

"Sister," Sidon said, and his voice was strained in a way that ran counter to what Paya expected out of him. "I would… I would speak with you, if I may." He paused, then, his attention going to his feet before returning to his sister's face. "Or, that's what I want to say. I spent decades wondering what I would say to you if we met again. Now that you're in front of me, it's all slipped away."

Mipha smiled at him, plainly amused. "The years have changed you very little, in some ways. But I think perhaps they have changed me even less. I spent years thinking of you too, Sidon—conversations that lasted for days, listening to you tell me all the stories of your life. If I were to take the spirit of what I hope to communicate to you, to parse it down to its most essential element…" Her posture changed, in a way that Paya could not tell the meaning of, but Sidon's changed in response. "I am so proud of who you have become, Sidon. You are even stronger than I hoped you would be…" Mipha bore no shame for her tears; she neither tried to restrain them nor hide them, rejecting all artifice. "I am so glad that I was able to speak to you again."

Sidon nodded; unlike his sister, his emotions seemed to choke him, and he did not speak.

"I am only a spirit, now; my healing powers are wasted on me. So, if you would, I wish you to have them." Zelda looked up, then, at last broken out of whatever place she had retreated to, and she looked too tired to be wounded. "They will protect you, when things are at their most dire, and I hope that they will be a comfort to you when the world is at its most dark. Please accept them."

There was a light in the Zora princess's chest, and she drew it forth with her fingers; it was soft and blue and held in it the same gentle radiance that she had used to heal Sidon of his wounds. She knelt before Zelda, and Zelda's hands were shaking as they reached out for it. For all the world it looked like a jewel passing between them, and Zelda took the jewel in her hands before pulling it against her own chest, where the light sank in. It did not disappear, leaving in the air a faint luminescence, the sound of little bells, the smell of clean waters.

Zelda held her hands to her chest, still, as Mipha rose to her feet once more. "I must take my leave, now, and begin preparations with Ruta. When the time comes, we will strike at the darkness. We will annihilate Ganon together." She meant it, and that fact more than any other struck Paya like a blow: no one knew how the champions had died, exactly, but everyone knew that they had. Now she thought she understood better the pain, the enormity of what the Champions had been made to suffer; to be willing to return to the battle after that, to face off again with the primordial darkness that had killed and imprisoned them for so long… there was no understanding such devotion, such courage.

 _But I wish to_ , she thought, _and that is everything I wish to_ be.

Light engulfed her, light the color of gold, and she realized that she was being sent away.

Sidon, engulfed in the same light, realized at the same moment, and called out, "Mipha! What should I tell Father?"

Mipha walked toward them, not toward Sidon but toward _Paya_ , though her eyes were on her brother. "Tell him that I'm sorry for making him worry. Tell him that I am free, and happy, and I will see our kingdom safe from the darkness. Tell him… tell him I always followed my heart."

Paya felt her face reddening as the Zora princess stopped in front of her, rising higher so their faces were level. She froze stock still as Mipha leaned in, lips nearly touching Paya's ear, and then said in tones so low that no one else might hear:

"You should, too."

The light swallowed her, and Paya was gone from that place of water and tears.

* * *

Paya and Sidon disappeared, as if transformed into motes of golden light that rose into the sky and away from Vah Ruta. Zelda watched them go, realizing that she was not with them, and that that teleportation looked a very great deal like her power. _Perhaps I could do that. Perhaps I do not need the Sheikah Slate at all_. It was a thought she latched onto, a raft in the storm.

Then she was alone on Vah Ruta, alone with the woman who had died for her. The warmth of the healing power ( _Mipha's Grace_ , she thought the name though she had not heard it) was still inside of her, like a star sitting next to her heart, and it made her feel safe, and balanced, and if not more in control of herself then at least able to pretend. Zelda had seen Mipha whisper something to Paya; she could not guess at what it had been and would never ask. Shame, more than propriety, denied her.

"Mipha," she said to the ghost's back, and Mipha did not turn in response to her so she continued anyway, "why am I still here?"

"There is something I have to show you," the dead woman said, and from anyone else's mouth it might have been menacing, but from Mipha's there was only regret and hope and fear and shame. "Will you let me?" She left Zelda an avenue of escape, and from that Zelda understood two things: that whatever this was would hurt her, and that Mipha loved her enough to want to spare her from it despite the necessity. Was it memory or a deeper, more essential element of her heart that felt that love and demanded she answer it?

"Yes."

The newly-revealed light of the sun was blocked out as the entrances to Vah Ruta closed, and the Divine Beast roared in a sound not far removed from joy as it drew into itself. Then they moved, and Zelda felt the floor shift beneath her, and she reached down into the goddess power, broadening her awareness, sending it outward and into the world beyond the Divine Beast.

How bright the world, how _clear_ , outside of Vah Ruta, how she felt the rays of the sun though they did not fall on her skin, the pure water of the reservoir like a cauldron of diamonds as Vah Ruta dove into it. Vah Ruta's being _changed_ as it submerged, moving through the water without disturbing it and at a speed that should have been impossible for something of its size and its bulk. It was as if the water itself was not just a medium through which it moved but a wholly separate world that it occupied.

Swiftly did they move, flitting out of the reservoir, down waterfalls, along the lengths of rivers wide and narrow, and up the side of the mountains that ringed in Zora's Domain. Where water flowed, so too could Vah Ruta, and when it burst from the shallows it needed walk only a little further to crest the massive mountain at the western end of that range. It bellowed its challenge to the Calamity, lifting its trunk, and its capacitors warmed up as the targeting laser focused on the keep of Hyrule Castle.

The outer layers of Vah Ruta opened, and the sun shone down on Zelda again. It was warm, wonderfully warm, warm in a way that sent warmth through her whole being, and she allowed herself a moment to draw on it for strength and comfort.

During the entire trip, for those several minutes, Mipha had not looked at her. Her expression had been distant, as if drawn far away, and now Zelda really _looked_ and saw that she was looking to the west, to Hyrule Castle. To Ganon.

"What I am about to show you," the Champion's voice was quiet but firm, the decision already made, "is not meant to drive you to haste. I need you to understand that, before we begin. If we are to have any hope of defeating Ganon then you _must_ gather your strength. Restore as much of your memory as you can, marshal all of the goddess's power that you can possibly control, free the Divine Beasts… everything that you feel you need to do, _do_. Ganon is so much worse than it was a century ago, Princess. We will need every possible advantage if we hope to see it defeated."

Haste. Yes, she had been thinking of that, hadn't she, in the further recesses of her mind. There was something there as they had done battle with Vah Ruta, as they had faced the Blight that had conquered it and killed Mipha. _How much worse must things be in other places? And worst of all, Ganon. Hurry. Hurry to Hyrule Castle. Make straight for there, if you can, for time is the most terrible of your enemies._

"My father's spirit said to me that the Hero's strength was nearly gone. Hylia told me that we were nearly out of time."

"I do not believe that." Mipha's words cut across her own, not dismissive but _insistent_ , the words of someone who genuinely knew better, and the force of them was different from everything she had said up to now. "Ganon's strength grows, but Link will not fail. He will hold for as long as he is needed." Then, quietly: "He promised."

"You seem so sure," Zelda said, and the curiosity was rising in her, now, how relieving to let it shoulder past her grief, to push to the forefront of her mind and insist that this was the place where it most belonged. "How can your faith be so absolute? How can your faith in _him_ be so strong, knowing what he is facing?"

Still Mipha did not face her. "We were Champions. All five of us still share some connection between us, even in death. I have… watched him, from my prison, for the past hundred years. From him I drew my faith that we would see release; so long as he fought, there was still hope. But, Princess." Mipha was shaking, the outline of her spirit quivering though the image of her remained solid. "You must see to understand. May I show you?"

She was enshrouded in the power of Hylia; in answer she reached out, mingling her awareness with Mipha's. There was so much sorrow there, so much regret, so much _pain_ , that it threatened to overwhelm her, to be more than her goddess-mind could bear, an ocean of it, and that ocean swept her away.

* * *

No Malice lay about the grounds of Hyrule Castle, corroding the fabric of the world around it. No monsters walked its halls. Guardians roamed or sat in silent vigil, waiting for invaders that had not wandered near in decades. The sky was dark, crackling with energy that emanated from the Calamity as it did battle, but it exerted no effort in trying to infect the world around it; all its strength was turned inward. A brilliant green light shone from the highest tower, as if battling the storm of darkness.

There was also no silence there; anywhere that one stood in Hyrule Castle, or even as far away as the shattered remnants of Castle Town, one could hear echoes of conflict. The ringing of steel was underscored by the roar of powers unleashed, darkness leveled against the sword that would seal it, the exultation of a voice more ancient than the Calamity itself.

Down, then. Starting at the Sanctum, where the throne of the Kings and Queens of Hyrule lay in pieces, one could cast one's awareness into the enormous pit that opened in its floor, down into the foundations of the earth beneath the castle, into the enormous chamber where the Hero waged his war.

The Master Sword plunged into the Calamity's throat, cutting its roar short, and Link tore the blade away in a spray of fire and darkness. Ganon bellowed, its shifting form staggering, the killer blow landed against it. Link landed on the ground, backed away as it fell to it knees. It looked at him with eyes, first dozens and then hundreds and then only two, that oscillated between orange and purple and golden before settling on yellow, yellow like fire.

It hit the ground on its face, the impact shaking the chamber in which they stood and the entirety of the castle above them, and its body burst into flames.

Link staggered, then, and fell to his knee, the weight of mountains settling on him. His blood pooled beneath him, not from wounds opened by Ganon but by protestations of his flesh, a rejection of the work he asked of it. He breathed in heavy, ragged gasps, his body shuddering with the effort of each inhalation—but he did not fall. The Master Sword's tip, burning with the blood and hatred of its most terrible enemy, dug into the floor as the Hero held himself up by its hilt. He did not fall.

The fire of the Calamity's body danced and sang and burned and swirled as its physical form shattered and faded to nothing. The eyes of the beast, twin suns that hurt to gaze upon, floated there in the flames; they never looked away from the Hero, took in every moment of his weakness, of his pain, seeming to measure him.

Ganon did not roar; instead the fire drew into itself, swirling more brightly and intensely as it condensed, and finally it settled on the floor. If one looked at it from the Hero's perspective one would have seen it as a nearly formless silhouette of fire and darkness, staring with golden eyes bereft of feeling or expression; the Hero did not look up. There was quiet in the hall, for that brief time.

"There have been changes, since last we spoke," the beast within the fire whispered, and its whisper suggested that if it shouted then the world would break. "Would you hear of them?"

Link spoke not; he breathed, and held onto his sword, and waited.

"She is finally on the move again. I admit to… _surprise_." It was not surprise that coated its words in venom, that made the walls shake and the earth groan beneath them. "I was so sure she was dead, that you had left her corpse to cool on the grass when you challenged me, but she is returned." The fires had no face, no hands, no shoulders, not a single part that would betray body language common to monster or beast or humanity, but still it shifted, still it seemed to grow more agitated. "All this time, I thought you were only delaying me, and that the battle was over save for you. All this time, I had assumed that _time_ was on my side. Yet here we are, and it is growing short."

No reaction. Did the Hero even hear? Did the Calamity care?

"I respect you, you know. I always have, though I did not always show it. To take up arms against a power greater than yourself, to seize the strength of the gods to make the world that you desire—that is _worthy_ of respect." It was not respect that shifted the fire, that made that voice rise above a whisper, that made the walls echo with the growls of a beast too vast to tread the earth. "But it doesn't matter. None of it matters. The two of you against me were not enough before, and while you two are so greatly reduced I am so much more than I was. Can you feel it, I wonder, how my strength builds and returns? Can you feel me—" The Calamity paused, its gaze never wavering. "I am wasting my words. Let us see if you will live, this time."

The attack of the Waterblight, when leveled against a person's will, was invisible to the naked eye; not so the power of the true form of Ganon. Between the flames of the beast and the crouched form of the Hero the air was _alive_ with fire and darkness, ropes of virulent hatred so concentrated they were like an undying curse waving in the air, reaching for the prone form of the Hero. Still he did not respond. Maybe, then, he truly did not see them there.

Then the Calamity's power was upon him and he screamed with all the force of his body, an ear-splitting howl so pained that half a country away one princess tried to cover her ears against it while the other listened with the resignation of someone who had suffered this before. He writhed, his body spasming, muscles seizing as the power of the beast flowed into him, _through_ him, and when he screamed the power arced between his teeth like bolts of black lightning.

The earth shuddered beneath them; so much strength did the Calamity pour into the Hero that the run-off flowed away through the ground itself, seeking channels through which to rush out and restore the darkness that had walked the land. Ganon struck, and the earth bled, and the hero screamed. The golden eyes set within the fire showed nothing at all, but perhaps the spirit behind them smiled. Still the Hero did not fall.

The Master Sword was chipped and pitted, its edge worn down in places, rust betraying its integrity in others. The Malice danced across it, too, seeking to eat away at the blade as it ate away at the Hero, for did not the stories claim that the sword and its master were one, two halves of a single soul, and that to destroy one would destroy the other? So Ganon attacked it, too, and in that hall, one could hear metal creaking.

And then a single bright, clean note, accompanied by the radiance of a terrible blue light.

The light shone from the blade of the sword, pushing back the Malice, and the hero's screams stopped. The flow of the Malice was stymied not at all; the killing intent of the Calamity was redoubled, and then more, as the weapon forged in the fires of the gods pushed back against it. The note rose and rose and rose, the dawning call of the gods, the ringing of a bell, a single voice that was the instrument of dragon song.

The space behind the wall of blue light pushing back Ganon's power was empty, and then the spirit of the sword winked into physical existence.

None remained who knew her as she had been before; none remained who would be able to say how she had been changed. Her lustrous blue skin, once gleaming like polished steel, had grown dull and discolored in the long battle with the Calamity. The robes that hung down from her shoulders, recalling arms or even wings, were tattered and rusted. The shape of her head, which had once suggested hair and helmet both, had shifted, flowing down into a mantle that protected her torso—and this was necessary, as that mantle was pitted and gouged more severely than the blade of the sword. Only her voice, raised in the song that she had sung for the Hero in an age before ages, was unchanged.

How Ganon hated her; how the fires raged, and its growling built to a howl, drowning out the long note of her song.

"Master," said she, in a voice older than Ganon, a voice that made the Hero look up, "please rise. Her Grace will be with us soon." Ganon's howl grew more terrible, the force of its attack turning into a storm, and now there was no run-off, now the strength to shatter worlds and rewrite history was being concentrated into a single terrible point, a typhoon of darkness in which stood a man and the spirit of the sword that had judged him worthy. "Rise. You are the Hero fit to serve Her Grace, and you cannot fall here. Your duty is not yet fulfilled." The sound of Link's fingers tightening against the hilt of his weapon was small in that maelstrom. "Yours is the sword that will seal the darkness. Yours is the spirit unbreakable. Rise! Rise, my master, and take up the blade that is yours by right! Face the darkness! For Hyrule, for life, for Zelda! _Rise!_ "

How old the Song of the Hero; in ages long past, ages forgotten to mortal and gods alike, she had sung it at the behest of the goddess. Now she sang in the language of the old gods, in a voice that shook the foundations of the heavens, so that Link might hear the call of his own soul.

It did not strengthen him; that was not the power of the song. Still his blood pooled beneath him, still his body threatened to fail him, still his limbs shook and his breath came in ragged, gulping gasps. But he heard it, and he heaved himself to his feet, the Master Sword raised in his hands.

Fi reached the last notes and, smiling, vanished.

The light came from the sword, but it was _his_ light, too, and as the power of the Calamity leveled all its fury against him he stood unshaking in the center of the maelstrom. It did not touch him; it could not.

"Nothing is unbreakable," the fires roared as the enormous chamber shook and danced around them. "Not this place. Not that sword. Not _you_." The fires shifted, rose, expanded, beginning to fill some new shape. "I only need to win once, Hero. You _will_ fail; your time grows short, too. Your spirit will buckle."

"I will not fail," the Hero said, his voice quiet in that chamber even as the maelstrom died, all the power of the beast being recalled into the flames which swelled and darkened. "I will hold you here. I will hold you until they come for me, and for you."

The shadow grew, and grew, and grew, as Ganon crafted its own shape.

"I won't let you hurt them."

"Who," Ganon whispered, towering over the Hero, "do you seek so desperately to protect?"

He was still gasping, barely able to speak the words, pausing for breath between each name. "Urbosa. Daruk. Mipha. Revali." He swallowed. "Zelda." Finally, he made eye contact with the beast. "You won't touch any of them."

The raging of the maelstrom as it was pulled back into Ganon's body; the buckling of stone under its hooves; the hiss of metal as it lightly dragged its swords across each other; the howling of the earth, full to bursting with its evil; none of these were so terrible, so world-shattering, as the thunder of Ganon's laughter.

It did not speak the words. Its laughter reached a shrieking crescendo, and it swung its swords, falling to battle once more.

The sound of steel ringing in that hall drowned out the world.

* * *

Zelda came back to her body, then, and fell to her hands and knees, nearly collapsing altogether. _Hylia he is in so much pain_ and she could not go further than that, there was a barrier in her soul that would not let her confront everything that she had seen, everything she had heard.

"How," she said, and looked up at Mipha, who was clear-eyed and dry-faced in a way that she herself was definitely not. "For a hundred years, he… how?"

"Faith," the dead princess answered, "and duty. He has always been dutiful, even when he was very small, and he has always been faithful, too. They are armor that protects his heart, and they allow him to push himself up, even when."

"Mipha?"

"Even when he suffers. Even when he is all alone. Hylia is wrong, and your father is wrong, and Ganon is wrong. He will never break. For a hundred years or ten thousand, he will fight for us. For you. He will never fall. He'll just… suffer." Another long pause. "He forgets what happened to us. He forgets that day, as if the fight is all he's ever known of Ganon. Because if he allowed himself to remember, he." Mipha could not get the words out. Instead, for the first time since sending Paya and Sidon away, she looked at Zelda, and Zelda saw that she had been wrong to think her calm. "You must save him, Princess."

She thought of Link in that place, facing down the end of the world with nothing but a sword and the strength of his will, Link who had protected her from death, Link who had borne the burden of war in her place for a century. She was supposed to save _him_? It was preposterous. How could she even _aid_ someone like that, much less save them from battle?

"Please," Mipha said, and her tone was still controlled but at the edge of her words it began to fray, as if something were about to unravel inside of her, "you _must_. You saw how he fights, how he suffers. So many times he has struck down Ganon, and so many times he has suffered those same ministrations. My death was as nothing compared to what he is experiencing." Her hands balled into fists. "I know… you loved him, once. That love gave rise to your power. Please… no matter what it takes, or how hard it becomes…" Then something else inside of her changed and her red hands fell loose. "I will be with you. I will add my power to yours, however I may. But please, Princess."

There was a golden light, and it was hers but not hers, and she could feel herself leaving that place, and she did not have time to cry out, only to hear:

"Please save him."

* * *

Mipha was alone on Vah Ruta, and it was quiet in that place. No Zelda, no Sidon, and after one hundred years there was no Ganon. What a storm whirled within her, thoughts of her brother and her father and of Zelda, but she could center herself. Now she was alone, at last.

She had controlled herself in front of Zelda; not perfectly, but she could not demand perfection of herself. Not for this. Not for the enormity of what she was experiencing.

For a hundred years she had watched him, the lacerations in his flesh and the failing of his body. For a hundred years she had been helpless to reach out to him, unable to lend him aid. For one hundred years her promise to him had been made into a lie.

Maybe now, at the end, she might be of some help to him. She had to believe that; there was nothing else to believe.

Casting her sight to the depths of that pit, she returned to her vigil. She would not look away.

Alone, at last, she allowed herself to weep for him.

 **A/N:** This scene is actually the entire impetus behind the writing of this fic; the image of Link fighting alone for one hundred years drove this whole story from the start. It was very difficult to write, and I'm not confident in it, but if I don't put it up now then I fear that I never will. Maybe I'll rewrite it at some point, if folks don't like it. Thank you for your patience in waiting for this chapter, and thank you for reading. Every review posted so far has been a strength to me, and one of the chief reasons I'm able to work up the energy to get all of this posted. I'll start adding Author's Notes from here on out, just so the chapters feel a touch more personal. Thank you, again.


	17. Visions and Secrets

Bright, the sun as it shone upon Zora's Domain for the first time in those many weeks; warm, the air in the wake of the rain. Zora's Domain was alive with water, a thousand fountains flowing in a thousand directions as its people walked along its streams without the shadow of annihilation standing over them. The roar of the water draining from the reservoir was constant, every sluice opened to drain before the flood season returned. Every engineer was unanimous in their agreement: disaster had been averted. All the peoples of Hyrule—and the Zora not least of them—had been saved. The Domain was a glimmering jewel, and its people found their ancient pride once more.

In the heart of Zora's Domain stood the piscine tower that marked the throne of its kings and its queens; at the base of that tower, where the throne room stood, the sun shone through in curtains that laid its occupants in shafts of light. The warmth was comforting, after the long days of darkness and rain, but Zelda drew no comfort from it. She was sweating, her undershirt sticking to her back as she spoke to Dorephan, who had listened with rapt attention as she relayed the story of the battle on Vah Ruta, of the things she had seen afterward. Paya was at her side, having also changed out of her Zora armor, though Zelda imagined that she was not so uncomfortable. Sidon, quieter and more pensive ever since returning from the Divine Beast, stood at the foot of his father's throne, arms crossed over his chest. No one else was present in that chamber, not Muzu, not the guards, not anyone but they four.

"…And the vision ended as they fell to battle again. That is all that Lady Mipha showed me." No need to mention what came after; no one present needed to know of their princess's pain and grief.

Dorephan shifted in his throne, the ghost of a smile playing across his face. "That boy… Our scouts had indicated that the sounds of battle have continued unabated for a century, but it was so difficult to believe. Not just that a Hylian could live for so long, but that he could still be fighting, without food or water or rest." He shook his head. "If it had not come from your mouth and been shown to you by Mipha, I would never have believed it. But Link is the same as he ever was."

Was he? What a thing to say—that he should have always been this person, even before laying hands on the sword that called him to his destiny. "It would seem so, Dorephan. Mipha believes that he will continue fighting for as long as he is needed, and that to rush to his aid without preparing would be a grave mistake."

"If Mipha believes so, then that is assuredly true. Your preparation must be of the absolute highest priority, and every advantage conferred to you. The Lightscale Trident," and he saw her reach for it and waved his hand, "is yours to carry. You freed my daughter from her imprisonment, and I am sure it will be her great joy to join her strength to yours in the battle to come. Take it. Save the one that the Hero carries, there is no finer weapon in all the realm, and it is still connected to Mipha. I hope that it will serve you well."

What a heavy thing—not the trident itself but the thought of it, the import of the weapon as it lay strapped to her back. She remembered the feeling of using it against the Waterblight, how Mipha's knowledge and skill and strength had driven her limbs. _Perhaps my body remembers some part of that_ , she mused, and knew that it was true, if only in a small way. More than the fact of the weapon, more than its use against Ganon, she thought of the stone monument that bore its history, how Mipha's voice had spoken through it in the story etched into the rock face, and she wondered how much more the weapon was. "Thank you," she managed.

"It will be a comfort to me to know that you have it." The smile slipped from his face; his expression was not one of unhappiness, that Zelda could tell, but he was instantly more intent as he leaned forward on his throne, massive hands digging into the armrests. "We will celebrate you, of course. I know you would rather not—you would have preferred not even when you were a child—but we will do so anyway, because my people feel we must. But before we get to that, one question remains to me."

 _Hylia, that could be anything_. She nodded.

"You spoke of seeing Link's battle with Ganon, of the wounds he laid upon it and the different ways in which they've been locked together. Of the wounds he suffered. Through all of this, you never related how he's managed to stay alive for that long, or his personal condition, or even what scars the battle has left on him. So, my question is: what state is the Hero _in_?"

"That," she said, the thoughts a whirlwind inside of her skull that she pieced together as she spoke, "is a very good question. Mipha told me that faith and duty fueled him, but that cannot be all, can it? But I do not know. The vision was rooted in his perspective, almost, as if Mipha's connection to him was strictly personal." Looking at the middle distance, toward the ground, she did not see as Dorephan closed his eyes. "I never saw him myself. I felt his pain, his exhaustion, his determination, and I felt it as he answered the call of the sword… but I do not know how he is being sustained. If the power of the sword is so great, then perhaps it is supporting him as he fights; perhaps it is some power of the spirit of the Hero, that allows him to fight on long after others would have died. Maybe it's something inherent to Link himself. I… I don't have the information." She paused. Bit her lip. "No. That's wrong. I don't have the _perspective_ to answer that question right now. Perhaps, with more of my memory…"

"Do not let it trouble you." Dorephan's voice was gentle, his expression kind. "That he fights on is the most important thing; he is devoted to his duty as the Hero and as your Champion, and if Mipha believes that he will not fail then it must be true." Then he smiled, showing his teeth, and they were very much like his daughter's. "May I ask a favor of you? When you defeat Ganon," because he believed in her and in his daughter and in the Hero so utterly that there was no room for doubt inside of him, if she looked at him with the goddess sight then the fullness of his faith would crush her to the ground, "when Link is free, please bring him back here. He spent a great deal of time with us in his youth and was treasured dearly by his contemporaries. And," here the smile faltered, briefly, before returning, "I have something I want to show him. A memento, of the life he lived here and of the love of the Zora." The grin grew wider, but the joy was gone out of it. "In truth I think of him as a son, you see, and it would ease my heart to see him again."

"Of course," and the words from her mouth were sadder than she had realized, as if someone else was speaking with her voice, and for one moment she was displaced in time, standing on the precipice of some deeper knowledge. Then it passed, and she felt herself return to normal. "I can only imagine he will want to see you, too."

There. The smile was back, genuine now, happier, and he raised his hand not in a gesture of dismissal but to let her know that she was no longer beholden to this audience. She and Paya bowed together, and Sidon, still thoughtful, stepped down from the dais to join them as they walked out of the throne room. The weight of that place was immeasurable, she thought; was that just the weight of all monarchs, all thrones, or was there something there that was particular to this place, this family? Was it the roar of the waterfalls as the Eastern Reservoir drained that leant it such import? Was it how Zora's Domain was in many ways the most vital place in Hyrule, its sole protector against elements that would see it regularly swept clean? Or was it just that Link had walked here, a century ago, and the imprint that he had left on the hearts of its people had become an echo chamber that thundered with a voice speaking a language she did not understand? _How they loved him_ , she thought, not understanding how right she was.

"There will be a great deal of talking," Sidon's voice was low, almost conspiratorial, as they descended the stairs, "about the things you have done and the doom you delivered us from. Everything said will be true, so long as it is in praise of your courage and your ingenuity and the good you have done for us. But." He stopped, and they stopped too, turning to face him, and Zelda noticed that Paya let Sidon stand between them, which was a testament to the trust and faith he had fostered in the halls of Vah Ruta. "We are more than the actions of our hands! This I believe. Even if you had failed, even if we had all been swept away, you would still be the most courageous souls I've ever come across. You were willing to put your lives on the line for a people you'd never met, faced down monsters that few living eyes have ever even seen, and I feel emboldened by the stoutness of your hearts. Paya. Zelda." He extended his hands, his left to Paya and his right to Zelda, as if seeking a hand-shake. "You are the heroes of my people, and you will be my dearest friends for as long as I live."

She clasped Sidon's hand with both of hers, and she felt the power there, power that had let him sink his claws into the flesh of the spawn of Ganon—but more than that he was warm, and the smile he gave her when she took his hand was so bright, so raw, so _happy_ that she could not help smiling in return. Paya was more hesitant, only slightly, as she also clasped both of her hands to Sidon's one. Sidon laughed, then, practically _roared_ with it, and the sound was so jovial that Zelda could not help laughing, too, if only a little.

"Shall we?" she asked. Their hands unclasped; she still felt the warmth of his embrace, the radiance and kindness of his expression, as the three of them descended the long steps from the throne room.

The plaza stood spread out beneath them, and her breath caught in her throat—she heard Paya gasp on Sidon's other side—at the sea of Zora spread beneath them. Every person in the Domain must have been gathered there, from the smallest children to the most aged of the elders, a sea of blues and blacks and reds and greens, countless eyes looking up at them, at _her_ , waiting with breathless anticipation. She saw the guards who had been with them at the reservoir, who had fought alongside them against Vah Ruta—Gaddison waved from the crowd, and Zelda inclined her head, hoping the light-skinned Zora would see.

"My people!" Sidon's voice was very loud in that place of held breath and fervent whispers. "A day ago, we faced the possibility of our end. Today, the sun shines on us once more, and the Divine Beast Vah Ruta has been cleansed of the evil that plagued it! Tonight, we celebrate the work of those who fought to free us from the shadow of annihilation, and those who fight to banish the threat of Ganon from this land! Join me, friends!" He grabbed Zelda by the wrist and she realized what was happening a second before her lifted her arm and Paya's into the air. "These are the heroes of the Zora!"

Their voices drowned out the waterfalls and shamed the thunder, their collective roar a physical weight exerting pressure on her chest. Sidon's laughter was almost inaudible, and he released their hands and waved with both of his, and then he called out and his people answered:

"ZELDA!"

" ** _ZO! RA!_** "

"PAYA!"

" ** _ZO! RA!_** "

The crowd carried their names, exulting them with the name of their people, and the force of it shook the domain beneath them. Zelda waved too, laughing, forgetting for one moment the weight of what was on her. She looked at Sidon, whose face was upturned with real, unfettered joy, and then she looked across at Paya—and the look on her friend's face brought her short.

 _She is still worried. For Hyrule, for us, and for me. Most of all for me. I have done ill by her. How many times have I thought that, in the past few hours alone? How many times have I been shamed by the depths of her devotion? Have I been avoiding this because of how she feels for me? Am I a coward, to not be able to face her, and will I continue wronging her because of it?_

Paya was looking at her, too, and some part of her seemed torn, determined. Maybe Zelda could have understood, if she had been privy to the words Mipha whispered in Paya's ear, or if she listened to the echoes of Paya's heart with the power of the goddess. She had neither of these things. Only her determination.

 _I will make this right_.

* * *

There was cheering, though thankfully no speeches; there was music, played on stringed instruments that Paya recognized but Zelda did not; there was dancing, of a style that would only be possible for a people who moved through water more comfortably than a Hylian could move on the ground. There was food, fruits and vegetables and fishes prepared in ways too myriad to try them all.

The celebrations were a release of the tensions of the Zora, defiance against the extinction that had been averted, as much for themselves as for the princess and her guardian and the prince and his guards, and once they got going there was no real way to stop them. Even as the children became exhausted and were escorted back to the communal sleeping pools, even as the aged declined dancing and instead partook of rich food and heady drink, the celebrations continued under the light of the Domain's shining stones. No one person or group was necessary; the Zora needed this celebration as much as they needed any other essential component of life, and so it would continue.

This is what allowed Zelda and Paya to slip away with laughing, happy thanks to Sidon and Gaddison and the other members of the guard who had brought them in as if they were finless siblings. The Zora had begun to partake of drink, which bolstered their happiness, and Sidon's grin was lop-sided and guileless as he bade the two of them goodnight.

So, Zelda and Paya returned to the inn, which was temporarily unstaffed. _So much the better_ , Zelda thought.

She drew in her breath, trying to steady herself in the arrangement of her thoughts. She had to do this for Paya, had to make her understand how much her companionship meant to her, and… more than that, there could be no secrets between them. Not even to protect one of them.

But Paya spoke first, as Zelda set the Lightscale Trident carefully next to her bed. "It has been a very long day. If you'd like to sleep, I will take watch until the innkeepers return."

Ah. The bite of shame, again, as she took her seat on the bed.

"Actually, Paya, I do not think I'm ready to sleep yet." The surprise registered on Paya's face so plainly it bordered on the comedic. "Today _has_ been full, yes, but it's given me opportunity to… reflect, I suppose." How to put this, how to put this. "When I was channeling Mipha, it was… overwhelming. She possessed an enormity of spirit that I assume is shared by each of the Champions. I don't know if it was because she has been in that state for a century or if it's just something that's inherent to the people we selected to battle Ganon, but… it was frightening. Personally obliterating, almost."

Paya nodded and—in what must have been an enormous act of will—took her seat next to Zelda on the bed. That small expression of solidarity, or at least the _desire_ for solidarity, made Zelda surer than ever that she needed to do this.

"Seeing Link… or rather, the battle… was even worse. Not just because of the fight itself, or how he was suffering, but because it spoke to the power of the bonds that the Champions had, and how it persisted even after death. The strength of their hearts ties them together, and if not for those bonds I do not think we would be able to face the Calamity."

Paya set her mouth, plainly thinking as if she had been presented with a puzzle. "I wonder how much of what you felt, the comparative enormity of their connection and their spirits, is because of your amnesia."

"I'm sure some of it is due to that."

"I think… forgive me for speaking out of turn, but I think perhaps it is a great deal more than _some_. You carry the power of the goddess inside of you and have the capacity to wield it with the fullness of Hylia's strength and awareness. No matter how powerful mortal bonds are… I don't know if they can compare to what you have. To what you _are_."

 _What you are_. Well. She wasn't wrong, even if Zelda did not like to think about it, even if it was like a barrier between them. But that barrier was enough, wasn't it? Enough reason to act?

"Perhaps you're right. But regardless of who is greater, I think that the Champions all drew strength from their bonds with one another, and that the bonds I build strengthen me in a very real way. When I shared consciousness with Purah, I… intuited some degree of her understanding. I could interpret the workings of the Guardians in a more concrete, meaningful way, and that understanding carried over to our dealings with Vah Ruta and my use of the Sheikah Slate. When Mipha fought the Blight using my body as a medium, her strength flowed through me, the memory of her training, and… I think I might be more skilled with polearms than I was before. Not comparable to her, but… my body remembers the weight of her trident. My spirit recalls her spirit. I haven't tried using her healing magic, but I have no doubt that when I do it will come to me as easily as if she were doing it on my behalf."

Something in all of this had struck Paya; she was staring down at the hands she had clenched together on her lap, not seeing them at all, the color rising in her face. She did not speak.

So, Zelda continued. "Paya… We've been through a very great deal together. More, I suspect, than I went through with anyone in my prior life." _Save only Link_. "You have protected me, fought for me, been willing to die for me. I would not have made it this far without you. So… it shames me to realize that I have neglected our bond. Neglected you. Wait." And she put her hand on Paya's shoulder, which stilled the protest that was about to come and made the color rise in Paya's face. "You mentioned before that you wished to see the world as I do, to share in the goddess's vision the way Purah did. If you would accept it, I would be happy to show you now."

"Oh." There were layers to that 'oh', layers that reached down to the firmament of the world, but she could not really guess at how deep they went. "I had been… meaning to ask, actually. I did not think it would be appropriate to do so today. It's been very trying. Especially for you."

She remembered crying in Mipha's arms, crying as if the entire world had ended, but she did not _feel_ the memory; it was information, not an echo of experience. As if another person altogether had done the weeping, the mourning. Was it the girl from a hundred years ago, who had loved and been loved? The goddess's vessel, who loved wholly and unreservedly? The barrier separating these identities grew thinner and thinner; soon, she knew, she would not be able to tell them apart. But she did not feel that same grief now, mercifully—did not even feel it for Link. Was that just another defense mechanism, which would come tumbling down when reality, too insistent to be ignored, overwhelmed it?

"I am tired," and it hurt to admit, because she wanted Paya to think that she was strong, wanted _everyone_ to think that she was strong, "but this is important. I will rest better, I think, after doing this."

"Then… please." Paya cleared her throat. "Please show me."

"It will be an easier transition if you clear your mind. Close your eyes, if that helps—" and as soon as the words were out of her mouth Paya receded, eyes closed, and from the nascent part of the goddess sense that she held onto at all times ( _How much has that changed my perception?_ ) Zelda could feel the deep, meditative state the young woman had entered. Some part of her training, most likely.

 _Well. No going back now_. She reached down into the goddess power, dipping into it with her fingertips, drawing just enough—more than she had used for Purah, enough to expand Paya's awareness nearly enough to match her own. _I made myself and Purah into nodes in a network, where our awareness each enhanced the other's. What more can I do, for Paya?_ But of course she understood, on the level that the goddess understood these things.

First the connection, to make the transition easier, more gradual. Paya was next to her, but without expanding her own thoughts Zelda only felt her as a presence, rather than in the more vibrant hues that Hylia's senses revealed to her. Of the power she made a cord, one end anchored in her own mind. Attaching the cord created a fascinating sense that she had just discovered a new limb, which up to now had been asleep and was only now coming to life as the nerves waited for fresh signals. Less than a heartbeat had passed since Paya had begun to meditate; she had given her little time to prepare, by the time she anchored the other end of the cord in Paya's thoughts.

Next to her Paya gasped; the cord between them hummed to life, echoes of their thoughts bouncing back and forth between each other. It was not possible to understand each other, not at this level, but they would. Zelda placed more of the power in the cord, and it flowed both ways, into her thoughts and Paya's at an equivalent rate, and as her own awareness expanded she felt Paya's change, too, the power flowing through channels of her mind that had never been stimulated before. The world around them brightened, _shifted_.

Outside, Sidon celebrated among his people, a pillar of fiery life that stood in a sea of stars, and they moved around him and his laughter was music that fit with the sound of their instruments, and the light of the Zora as they danced and sang and ate and argued and snuck away to dark places together was more beautiful than the luminous stones that surrounded the domain, more vibrant than the stars.

Zelda had given them wings, but Paya's curiosity was what carried them outward, into the world, and Zelda realized she was feeling what Paya felt, as intimately and concretely as her own experiences. A rush of giddy elation, and warmth, and thankfulness spread through her, and she did not know how much of that was herself and how much was Paya. They swept as one mind up the mountains surrounding Zora's Domain, feeling the deep rumbling of the peaks that whispered their old aches and fresher soreness in a language that echoed down into the heart of the world, felt Vah Ruta as it stood in its vigil. Mipha was up there, her attention turned ever to the castle, and Zelda quaked with a second discovery of the enormity of her spirit as Paya felt that ocean standing on the mountaintop. Mipha did not see them—perhaps no one could—but looked always to the west, and from a distance they looked too.

The power filled them, changed them, and Zelda pulled Paya's attention away from the castle, from Ganon and Link, with an urge that was too gentle to be called a correction.

 _Here_ , she thought, and her thoughts echoed in that wordless space that they shared, _look at me_.

Paya looked, and Zelda saw herself through another's eyes.

 _I am not Hylia._ She thought this reflexively, almost defensively, because Hylia was what Paya saw. She was the power itself, a tower of golden light that hid deeper secrets of greater import, her shoulders hidden by a folded pair of golden wings that shone with all the grace and radiance of the Sun. She realized Paya was not seeing her as she _was_ —perhaps there was no such thing, in this place. Perhaps they all saw some signifiers of true meaning, and even with the perspective of the gods they interpreted them according to their own understanding. Tears ran down her physical cheeks because they were running down Paya's and the echo of that feeling was in her, the awe and the duty and the hope and the love, and it was almost too much to bear.

Then Paya, as any person with even the barest measure of curiosity might, looked at herself, and Zelda showed her how _she_ saw.

It was more intense, somehow, than how Paya had seen Zelda ( _perhaps just because I see things so much differently_ ), and there was a moment in that timeless space where no word or thought passed between them. Paya was a great tree, grown greater since that day in Kakariko, her duty and courage and experience and purpose forming titanic, twisting branches that reached out in a network that would touch the stars themselves. At the heart of that purpose, that awareness of her place in the world, was the core of her: and her heart was brighter than fire, shining like a jewel, so radiant with love—

Paya gasped, and the connection broke with a suddenness that snuffed out the goddess awareness like a candle, and Zelda felt it like a blow to her head as Paya hit the floor next to the bed.

"Paya!" She could not see, had to steady herself by grabbing the headboard, shook her head and urged herself not to black out. "Paya, are you all right? What…" And sight came back to her, and Paya had pushed herself away, her back to the next bed over, both hands clasped firmly over her mouth and tears running over from eyes that looked as if they had… born witness to her life coming to pieces. _No. Gently. Carefully. Oh, I've made a mistake, but now we're stuck with it, be careful._ "What happened?"

It took half a minute before Paya let go of her own mouth, just enough to say between her fingers, "You know?"

She could not lie; not to Paya. She nodded.

"Oh." Paya closed her eyes, seemed to try to gather herself, failed utterly. Then, as pained as anything Zelda had ever heard anyone say: "I'm sorry."

"Why ever would you be sorry?" _Hypocrite, to ask someone else why they are wounded by their own heart_.

"It." Paya covered her face with her hands. "I am so ashamed. This is a weakness. I can't… I can't guard you like this. If you knew, I thought I would have to leave you, to…" She breathed, and breathed, and Zelda waited. "My duties are to the goddess and to Hyrule, even more than to you. If… if anything were to happen, and I had to rely on my own judgment to do what is right, it… these feelings compromise me. I can't act as your guardian with my judgment impaired. I thought I would need to return to the village if you knew, that I'd have to face Grandmother with my failure and be replaced, and I couldn't… I thought that if I kept it secret, I could stay with you. I… I _lied_ , I put you in danger just from my remaining here, because… because I wanted to stay with you so badly." Zelda sank slowly to the floor and crossed the space between them and put her arms around Paya, and at first the silver-haired girl flinched away from her touch but then she leaned in and Zelda stroked her back as she shook and repeated: "I'm so sorry."

Zelda was gifted in her analysis of the world around her; that she had made it this far was testament to that. She was quick-witted, in some ways. For this, though, as Paya cried against her shoulder and was crushed beneath the image of being separated from her and by her own transgression, her own failure to not _feel_ , she had to take her time. The white-hot anger she suddenly felt at Impa, not for any real slight but because Paya had been allowed to _believe_ that they might be separated because of this, would do neither of them any good. She had to be calm. Strong.

"You will not be going home," she said, and Paya grew very still in her arms. "Whatever your teachings are… whatever the rules passed down to you may be, believe this: I need you. _You_ , Paya. We have been through too much together; our fates are entwined, now, as surely as if they had been woven. And… it is selfish, and cruel, but I trust you, and I trust you more because you love me." There. She'd said it, and Paya flinched only a little at the word, hid her face only a little more insistently. "I would never trust anyone with my life the way I trust you. And…" She paused. She hadn't thought far enough ahead. "I am afraid I might hurt you before this is over."

No answer.

"I can't answer the feelings you have for me, Paya. Not as I am now. I don't know who I'm going to be at the end of this, or how I might change. We promised we would keep each other anchored, and we _will_ , but… I can't…" Ah, why did _this_ hurt? Was it because she was hurting someone else? That didn't seem right, but there it was. "I'm so afraid, still. Of the world. Of Hylia. Of Ganon. Of Mipha. Of _Link_." There. That was true, as true as anything she'd ever said. "I'm changing, Paya. Every day I move through a world inhabited by giants and I'm changing, and right now I can't love you like you love me, but… please don't leave me." Curse the gods, why was that so hard to say? Why was it so necessary? "I know it must hurt, but. Please."

She could not say how long that silence stretched out, how long it took for Paya to rein in whatever was raging inside of her, how long she had to resist reaching down into the power to find calm in the perspective of the goddess. The innkeepers did not return; that was a blessing, at least.

At last, after ages, Paya reached up and gently touched the hand on her shoulder.

"I'm OK," the Sheikah guard said, her voice hoarse and nose stopped up. Zelda let go, and Paya got to her feet and helped Zelda to hers. "If… if it is what you wish, I will not leave. This can… this can stay between us."

"It is what I wish."

"Then that is how it will be." Paya wiped at her face with her hands; she had worn no makeup today, knowing that they would see battle, but still her face was red and blotchy. "I apologize for… all of that. I… I think I knew that you wouldn't be able to feel the same way I did. It would be unfair to expect it of you, with everything you're facing." She stood straight, breathed deeply. "This isn't how I hoped to have this conversation with you, but… I have a lot to think about, still. A lot to work through for myself. I would like to talk to you about it again, but." She bowed low. "Will you let me choose the time and place? Will you please wait until I am ready?"

"Yes," she said, and how much lighter she felt for saying it.

* * *

The night passed in merriment for the people in the Domain, save for those two who slept the sleep of the physically and emotionally exhausted.

The city was quiet the next morning; only the king, the prince, and their trusted advisor were up to greet the travelers and to bid them goodbye. It was a short, simple thing; Sidon promised them eternal friendship and a place among his people, Dorephan bade them luck on their journey and beseeched them to return to him for any support that he might lend them, and Muzu was respectfully, blessedly silent.

Zora's Domain was a jewel amidst the falls, and the sunrise made it shimmer. So it was when Zelda and Paya took their leave, riding intertwining trails of blue light.

They materialized atop the tower where Sidon had first seen them, Zelda in the blue tunic she had worn in bygone days and Paya in the traditional garb of her village.

"The countryside looks so different in the daylight," Paya said.

"It does. Everything does, especially from up here." The Domain was not visible from where they stood, but still it was there; in the distance, if she listened carefully, she could still hear the roar of the waters. Taking the Sheikah Slate from her waist, she used its gazing function to look to the north, toward Death Mountain, and then to the west, toward Hyrule Castle. A thought occurred to her, and she flipped over to the album that she had recorded in a previous life. "I wonder…"

"Are you planning our route?"

"I had thought that we might head directly to where Vah Rudania waits, since that region is so close and I have an… _appointment_ nearby. But it occurs to me, looking at these pictures, that I recognize several of the locations. Here, look." She held the slate out where Paya might look at it, too.

"Oh, I see! Yes, this one should be easy to place, since it is so close to Dueling Peaks and frames them so specifically."

"Precisely! And this one looks at the castle from the southwest, if I'm not mistaken, and in this one you can see Vah Medoh, so we know what region it was taken in. Even this one, with no obvious landmarks, must be in a particular forest near the Great Plateau, based on the trees."

"Do you wish to restore more of your memory, then?"

"Yes," she said, because she did, and it was perhaps the first time it was true. She looked at Paya and she smiled wide and she felt the rush of the world spreading out beneath her and Paya's answering smile was shocked and bewildered and still unsure of itself. "I have had enough of monsters and ghosts and beasts, at least for a few days. Let's have a little adventure and recover those memories in easy reach. What do you say?"

Paya's answer was in her nod, her assurance in the way she cinched her pack and brought out her paraglider, anticipating Zelda's desire.

There was more to say between them; it might be easy to predict that there would always be more. But in that moment, as the two of them sailed down from the Lanayru Tower, carried gently on the winds blowing from the Domain, it felt like there was no need for words.

Hyrule waited.

* * *

 **Authors Note:** There! That was quite a few heavy chapters in a row, wasn't it? I think we can use a bit of a more light-hearted jaunt.

Actually I don't know that this next bit will be light-hearted. Some of these memories are seriously heavy stuff. But some of them aren't! We'll see how that goes, huh?

In case it is not clear, this is absolutely not the last we'll be hearing of Paya's feelings toward Zelda; they're just putting a pin in it, for right this minute, because Zelda's not in a place where she can navigate her way through and around a relationship (or even the rejection or acceptance of a confession) and the particular complexities of this one in particular. There will be more development to come, I promise, and I will not leave this thread hanging.

Anyway! I'm going to rest for a couple days after this, do some class work. I really do appreciate any and all reviews left on the story, no matter how long, how brief, or the particular tilt of the review. Let me know what you think of how the story feels so far! Let me know what you're hoping to see going forward. Hell, let me know how you found this story in the first place!

And thank you, as ever, for reading.


	18. Gatherers of Memory

The bokoblin picked a tuft of grass from the field and sniffed at it in the breathy, snuffling way that bokoblins did. Its sense of smell really was quite sharp—not on the level of a dog or a pig but several times more discerning than a person's—and it snapped to attention as it caught traces of _people_. Its dark blue skin was mottled by the dappled sunlight filtering down through the branches of the tree in whose shade it crouched.

The people had stopped here. Eaten something. Something made with rice, and meat, and there was a grain of rock salt that glimmered in the sunlight and it picked it up out of the grass and ate it and its jaws ran wet with the taste of the food they'd been carrying. Oh, it wanted that food. It also wanted their weapons, because the old knight's sword that it carried probably was not so fine as whatever they had. And maybe their _meat_ , too, because bokoblins were omnivorous but they loved meat best of all and it was not well-documented but a little nibble here and there of human flesh was sweet indeed.

Their smell told the story of their strength, too: it could smell the material of their bows, the faint ozone of the thunder arrows they carried, the slightly different ozone that told of ancient weapons. It wouldn't be able to hunt them alone. That was fine; its band was nearby, lead by a black-skinned bokoblin carrying a great club of dragon bone, and the lot of them together would easily be able to track those humans once they rallied. It spent a long time visualizing that before moving to act, mouth still watering as it thought of rice and bird meat and great hunks of salt. Gazing into the distance as it daydreamed, one might be forgiven for thinking it rather silly-looking.

It heard the discharge of the Guardian's weapon just in time to look up in alarm before promptly exploding into a ball of fire and evil-smelling smoke. The shockwave of the blast sent the tree falling with a crash, and two of its teeth and one of its horns fell in the burned grass moments before its sword hit the ground some ten paces away.

The Guardian did not stop its patrol at all; in the distance a bokoblin blew its alarm bugle, and the discharge of another Guardian's weapon cut it short. The Guardian, as well as several others in the area, responded to the sound by charging toward the spot, twisting legs beating heavy rhythms as they raced across open fields. The staccato beat of concussive explosions grew much quicker, and the howls of the bokoblins more frantic, as the Guardians converged on one of their camps.

South from there, across a small lake, Paya stood watch. The eruptions of light and fire and smoke rose up into the air like pillars of force, and she tried to imagine how many beasts the Guardians had managed to kill. She couldn't, she found; she just didn't understand enough about them. Surely her aunt could, or Zelda. It was a small thing, but she wished that she could have asked either of them about it. The Dueling Peaks clawed at the horizon, and she wondered at the mountains. The ruins of a building stood on a small islet in the center of the lake, and she wondered at their shared history, lost to destruction.

Behind her Zelda stood, the Sheikah Slate held in her hands, and her eyes shone with golden light.

* * *

"Tell me the truth," she demanded, quiet because she could not voice her demand louder, "how proficient are you right now, wielding that sword on your back?"

Blue eyes (not green-blue like hers but _blue_ , so blue they were like ice floating in water) looked away from her, not able to match her gaze. That said everything, didn't it? Not in answer to her question, because that question hadn't mattered. Of course, he was a master with the sword; if he wasn't he wouldn't be able to carry it, wouldn't even be able to _touch_ it, if legend was to be believed. No, the truth his silence and his reticence told was more damning: she had shamed him with the question, had shamed herself in revealing her weakness by asking.

"Legend says that an ancient voice resonates inside it." The legends did not specify what the voice was; an echo from the world of the spirits, or a message left by the gods, or the gods themselves speaking to their chosen Hero. But it was the sign of their covenant, of the strength and duty of the wielder of the blade, of how beloved he was by the gods. Beloved in the way she was supposed to be, but wasn't. "Can you hear it yet… Hero?"

He had been looking over his shoulder, at the hilt of the blade; now he looked at her again, and not for the first time his expression was so calm it bordered on severe, taking her in so steadily that she could feel the weight of his judgment. He was so quiet, more like a shadow attached to her heels than a man, and she had never seen him smile once in the days since he had been assigned to follow her—not even around the other Champions, not even in the celebration after their appointment. She had come to think of him as her judge; and why shouldn't he be? She was supposed to be the other half to the legend that he had already made real; the sword that would seal the darkness was in his hands. All she had to do was fulfill a prophecy as old as the kingdom she stood to inherit, if she did not destroy it in her failure. More than her father, more than the other Champions, more than anyone else, his eyes were heaviest, more terrible because he would not speak to her. Whatever judgments he held in his breast he kept quiet, and now, even _now_ …

"I have heard it only once," he said, and the very act of speaking seemed to pain him, his expression nearly breaking with the effort. Did he find it—her—so distasteful? "When I drew the sword from its pedestal. Ever since… silence."

"So, you do have a voice." She drew some petty pleasure from his flinch, his flush, how he looked away from her. Later she would be sorry for that barb, but in that moment she was just happy to elicit any genuine reaction at all. "Tell me, then: what did it say to you, when you laid hands on it and it found you worthy in an instant?"

The flush was gone, the flinch as if it had never been; now he looked at her again, unwavering, and it was as if she had said nothing at all. Probably she could have taken that as an effort on his part, a sign of some other victory; instead she felt very small. "It told me that I wasn't done yet. That it would speak to me again when I was worthy… when I had helped you."

A shock, cold water thrown in her face. Now she was a burden to him _concretely_ , keeping him from reaching his real potential, taking on his real role. But that was _preposterous_ , he was already holding the sword; what other worthiness was there for him to find? To what greater heights could he ascend?

"Are you _lying_ to me?" She had meant to sound offended; instead her wound showed in her voice, the pain making itself more evident than any expression of her face.

A pause as he considered the words, and then: "I will never lie to you."

She couldn't face him or the weight of his eyes; she turned away, walked quickly along the bank of the lake, telling herself not to run, not to give any sign of what she was feeling, how heavy his regard was.

The sound of his footsteps was very soft as he followed her, like a shadow carrying the holy sword.

* * *

She came back to herself with a fading, like sunset, as the memory receded. She still felt that shame, that burden of expectation, and her desperate need to be able to blame anyone else for it. She had carried all the self-blame that she could for… so long, it seemed. _Was that my entire life_? She did not envy the princess she had been.

Paya stood nearby, waiting attentively, hands folded in front of her. That she was in such a relaxed posture was a sure sign that there was no danger to speak of, nearby. She waited as she always waited, open and unassuming, pressuring Zelda for neither time nor explanations.

 _How would I have treated Link, back then?_ Knowing the answer, she rejected it and said, "My pilgrimage started here, I think, or at least this is when the Hero and I began traveling together." She pressed a hand to her forehead. "I find it difficult to talk about, because now it is one of my memories and yet I still think of it as happening to someone else, as if that girl who could not focus on anything but her own weaknesses and failures was another person altogether. I was so… twisted up by the expectations of others, Paya. Everything I said or thought was colored by that lens."

Paya nodded as she listened, as if the act of nodding was an intrinsic part of taking in information. As she nodded her brows furrowed and Zelda watched as she set her lips in a thin line, working up the courage to ask a question that she was not sure whether she had the right to voice. That she still hesitated—after everything that had passed between them!—was almost incomprehensible to Zelda, but the princess left her guard all the time she needed to work through it herself.

"When you remember these feelings," and Paya's words came slowly and carefully, "when you experience them in the way we experience memories, do they affect your state of mind now?"

"I'm not sure. I can feel _some_ part of me changing, my awareness of myself shifting, but… no. Perhaps not. I do not feel crushed by expectations from Impa, or Purah, or the Zora, or you. I can _understand_ it, my empathy for it grows as my memory does, but… no. My past struggles are not shifting how I feel about myself or the world around me. Though they still might."

"That is not all."

"No. No, I suppose it isn't. Maybe it is better to say I'm not _regressing_ , in some way, to become the person that I was, but… do you remember what I told you, before?"

"That it was like three persons were inside of you."

"Yes. Three persons, and I am only one. I had thought that, in regaining my memories, I would become more and more like the princess who was alive one hundred years ago, until perhaps I would disappear, and she would remain… but that hasn't happened. She is still there, and even though she is growing more distinct as I regain my memories she is not growing _larger_. I am not being pushed out by the person that I was. Perhaps that is because I have so much here, now, in the present, to keep me anchored," and she did not see as Paya looked down at the ground, "but the truth of it is unchanged regardless. What _has_ changed…"

"The goddess."

"Yes. Well. Perhaps not Hylia herself, but the person who can carry her power and see the world through her eyes. _That_ person is not growing, either, or becoming more distinct… but her _potential_ is. The power rests at the very floor of my being, and when I'm not interacting with it, it is obscured by my… self, I suppose. But the more of my memory I unlock, the more distinct it is, and the more constantly I am aware of it. I suspect that I was more powerful before I fell against the Calamity, and that by recovering more of my memory I may be able to use Hylia's strength more effectively." Which was, of course, what Impa had suggested, but the form it had taken was new and so she had felt the need to talk about it anyway.

"Do you wish to rest?"

"Rest? No. Thank you. No, I do not think so." She shook her head. "This is… draining, yes, but not so much so that I am exhausted by it. We identified three memories that should be in easy reach of Hyrule Field, and this is only one of them. The next should—"

She had not heard Paya cross the space between them but was unsurprised when one gloved hand was land very gently on her forearm. She looked up from the Sheikah Slate, doubly unsurprised that Paya would not meet her eyes.

"I-I would never presume to tell you when to rest." Paya hadn't stuttered in front of her in what seemed like a long time; that drew her attention as much as anything. "But… please. If you feel the need, even an inkling… please be willing to take a break. N-n-none of this is as important as your well-being."

 _She carried me on the mountain after my powers drained me so deeply that I went into a catatonic state. I can still see her face, how frightened she was, so sure that she had failed me and the world._

"Of course," she said, laying one hand over Paya's, squeezing the other woman's fingers in a way she hoped was companionable. "Of course, I will. It would not do for me to fall ill or come to harm without cause, now would it? In fact, you're right, I _will_ rest, after recovering one more. Looking at the album, here, I can see I was mistaken before—the castle faces to the south and this is plainly taken from behind it, so it must be taken from the northwest. There is a tower in that direction that I think we would do well to activate, and after we have a better lay of the land we can locate the memory. Does that… sound all right, to you?"

The fact of being asked apparently embarrassed Paya enough that she only nodded instead of answering directly.

So, they left that place behind.

In the distance, the Guardians began firing again, having found another nest of bokoblins.

* * *

It would be three days before they moved on to the next memory, regardless of Zelda's plans or Paya's acquiescence; from atop the tower they spotted several shrines, and their priority became reaching those shrines so that Zelda could grow stronger inside of them. She moved through them quickly—more quickly than other adventurers could have, in her place—and emerged from each victorious, through various means.

After the shrines were found they returned to Hateno Village, to pray at the statue of Hylia and offer up the collected spirit orbs. While in that village they returned to the inn, to check on their horses. From there they decided that it made better sense to leave their horses at the network of stables, since lodging them there cost nothing after the initial registration; so, instead of teleporting back to the tower overlooking the plains, they rode from Hateno along the road that ran up the east bank of the Hylian River. The going was brisk, but relaxed, and during that trip they stopped several times to address the concerns of travelers whose ways were blocked by bokoblins, or to recover the function of a stray Guardian. In fact, they passed very near to the place where the third intended memory likely resided, but it was still the third and so they rode on, intent on returning.

By the time they reached the stable and registered their horses, the days of travel told on both of them, and they each took their rest in warmth and safety.

In that way the time passed. In another life, perhaps, another adventurer might have done something very similar.

But make their way to memory they did. Rising with the light of morning they teleported to the top of the tower, descending on the wings of their paragliders.

* * *

"Go on! Taste it!"

Gingerly, more gingerly than she had ever seen him do anything, he took the hot-footed frog out of her hands. He held it with two of his fingers, so that its long legs hung down beneath it. The frog, for its part, seemed rather unbothered by the whole affair; it made an indifferent _ribbit_ as Link held it up in front of his face, eyeing it carefully before looking back to her.

"Oh, this is so perfect! All the specimens we've used for testing up to now have been lab-raised, rather than wild, so the effects of its diet on its constitution and the imparted benefits couldn't be controlled in the same way! And you're the strongest person I know, so you're least likely to get sick, so…!" She gestured with her hands. "Go on!"

The Hero looked from her, to the frog, and to her once again, shrugged, and then popped the entire thing into his mouth like an oversize piece of candy. His cheeks bulged out at the effort of holding it, and even then, one twitching leg stuck out between his lips. The frog still didn't seem particularly bothered, at least not enough to kick.

"Well? How is it? Do you feel anything? Oh, but don't chew it! We don't know how mastication will affect the particular oils and nutrients that impart the benefits, and we want this to be as controlled as possible!"

"Mm." He tilted his head, thoughtfully considering it, which was enough to get her blood pumping. Oh, if he was taking this seriously, then she might really learn something, and everyone would stand to benefit! As soon as the thought crossed her mind he tilted his head forward, held up his hand, and opened his mouth. "Bleh." The saliva-slick frog dropped onto his hand, resumed its seated posture, and once more seemed unbothered by the whole thing. For being so hard to catch, it was _remarkably_ docile in captivity. Link even wiped it down with a cloth and all it did was blink.

"Well? What do you think? Please, try to be specific!"

"Can't eat it like this," he said.

"I don't want you to _eat it!_ I just want you to _taste it_ and tell me what benefits you experience!"

He frowned at the frog, then at her. "How are these normally prepared?"

"Oh. Well, they're used to make potions that confer enhanced swiftness of foot; they're fairly heavily processed, and combined with certain proteins extracted from materials left behind by slain monsters, synthesized into a colloidal suspension that—where are you going?"

"The stable has a cookpot."

"Oh yes, I do remember they have a cookpot— _a cookpot?!_ You can't just _fry it up!_ That ruins the entire point of the experiment!"

"Well, I just put the entire thing in my mouth and I don't feel any quicker, so the next logical step is to try to cook it, right?" He was already moving off, frog in hand, and she hurried to follow him.

"No! Well, I mean, _perhaps_. Assuming your constitution doesn't simply render the conferred properties less effective than it would for the average person and that some level of processing is necessary to catalyze the particular proteins and acids that actually grant the effects, then I suppose some degree of applied heat would be the next thing to test for… but even still, we can't just do this off the cuff! We need a _process!_ "

Without missing a step Link held up the frog in one hand, and with the other hand he pantomimed moving an iron pan, or possibly a wok, over an open fire.

"Don't you _dare!_ " But she knew that look; it was the expression he wore when he knew he wasn't really being ordered and wasn't obligated to obey her. She protested, and he kept walking, and in time they came to the cook fire just outside of the stable.

Link took out his water bottle, uncapped it with his mouth, and poured a splash's worth directly into the pot. The water hissed and spat and danced, boiling and evaporating almost instantly, and Link nodded in appreciation of its heat.

"Can I put salt on it?"

"We don't know how elevated sodium levels, much less big hunks of rock salt, would interact with the proteins involved, so no. For this stage we wouldn't use monster parts, either, because we want to see if the effects can be activated from the specimen itself and _Link don't even think about cooking that frog!_ "

"Hup!" He was actually grinning as he tossed the frog into the air. As it rotated, spinning toward its oblivion, it made eye contact with her and she saw that no, it still did not care at all.

She covered her eyes and turned away, though she could not hide from the sound of oils popping and spitting, or from the sound of Link humming as he cooked.

Finally, after what seemed only seconds, the sound stopped, and metal scraped against stone as Link scooped his meal out with a military issue plate.

"…Hrm." That sound was about as expressive as he ever got, with regards to his mistakes or his distress. It was enough to make her turn around without further inquiry, and then she saw what was on his plate.

" _Oh Hylia_ ," she said, and turned her face away again. The smell coming from it alone absolutely precluded edibility, and what it _looked_ like… she couldn't even begin to describe. "And what, do you suppose, have you got there?"

"Food?" he said, sounding completely unsure.

"If that is food then it has the most dubious claim to the title I have _ever seen_." Oh, she was going to be sick. No. No she would _not_ be sick, she could control herself, about this if nothing else in her entire life. "Well, you've had your way."

"I have to eat this," somewhere between a question and a resigned sigh.

"You insisted. You might as well."

As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted them; the _color_ of the thing, the interlacing greens and purples, the _stench_! She wouldn't feed that mess to the Calamity itself. She was about to speak up, to tell Link to throw it away and that they would find another frog, when she heard a very loud _crunch_ , which was followed by a very strained swallowing sound. He could not bear to have it in his mouth long enough to chew it, apparently.

OK, _now_ she might be sick. Finally, she turned back to him and his now-clean plate. The face he was making was… unique.

"Well?"

"Eugh." Then he stopped, considered for a moment, and nodded. "Definitely needed salt."

* * *

The memory faded away from her consciousness, slipping back from experience into that dim country of recollection, and she found herself standing slack-jawed while staring at nothing. She turned her head and, yes, Paya was looking at her with a tilted head and knitted brow.

"I, uhm. I made him eat a frog." Well. Taste a frog. He'd done the eating quite on his own. But, yes, probably still her fault.

Silence. Three seconds, five seconds. Then: "You made 'him,'" said Paya, pointing with one finger at the darkness-enshrouded castle in the distance, "meaning Link, the Hero… eat a frog?"

She nodded. _Why in the name of every god did I record_ that _?_

Paya looked from her to the castle and back and the knit in her brows grew more pronounced. She nodded, then shook her head. "Um. Zelda. If I may."

"Please."

"What did he _do_? Or, rather… _why_?"

"For an experiment! It was a hot-footed frog, and I wanted to see if the effects of potions derived from them could be replicated without processing them, and he was strong enough to survive if anything went wrong, and… also probably because I liked him but hadn't realized it yet?"

Paya bit down on her lower lip, and the crease in the center of her forehead split the tattoo of the Sheikah eye cleanly in half. She looked as if she had more questions—then she shook her head, thinking better of it.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that! I don't know! Haven't you ever—let's just go to the next location!"

"Of course, Zelda. Since we passed by that spot earlier, it may be easiest to retrieve our horses and ride there. Or, if you would prefer, we could proceed on foot after I prepare some potions. I'll just need to stop by a pond, and—"

" _No frogs!_ "

* * *

From atop hilltops the Guardians signalled to each other in flashes of light, emitted from and received by their enormous eyes. Information regarding their individual patrol routes, threats encountered and eliminated, subtle changes that each might make to create more efficient coverage without overlapping the range of its compatriots—all of this was communicated in the space between moments. The flashing of their optic sensors would take on an almost fluttering quality, like the wings of a small bird or a fairy that hovered in place, and then their heads would turn away from each other as they resumed their patrol.

As near as Paya could tell, the Guardians had wiped out the bokoblin presence on this part of the plain and would continue patrolling without incident until the next Bleeding Earth. They were really, _very_ efficient; it made her wonder what they had been like in days past, when hundreds of them had worked in tandem to suppress all the monsters plaguing the kingdom. This particular group had no patrol overlap with the Guardians that wandered nearer the castle, which had likely been Zelda's intent. She wondered if the Guardians that Zelda had freed would attack those under the control of the Calamity; the only thing she knew for certain was that Zelda did not want to find out. Not yet.

She descended from the branches of the tree, satisfied that there was no immediate threat nearby. She landed noiselessly on the ground, and of course Zelda was right where she'd been before: standing in the spot that matched the photograph, hesitating, not yet engaging with the memory itself. The reluctance in Zelda's eyes was not quite like anything she'd seen there before.

Zelda saw her and smiled in an apologetic way and it was sad enough that Paya wished that she could do this in her place. "Sorry. This one just feels… different, somehow." She gestured around her. "The air here is different; the shadows are different. It feels heavy."

Paya did not have the same level of sensitivity as Zelda, for many reasons; still, she tried to focus, to bring herself to a state where she could begin to understand what Zelda meant. Some small, infinitesimal part of Zelda's blessing was still in her mind, and she guarded it like the greatest treasure in creation, but she touched it now, in her thoughts. It was like meditating, but more pronounced: it made her sensitive to the world around her, to the currents that flowed beneath crude matter.

Still. She felt nothing of what Zelda spoke. "Perhaps you remember what it was like, on some level. Even if you do not recall the memory concretely, you still harbor a memory of _feeling_." That was almost preposterous, and she felt ridiculous for saying it, but by now she knew it was better to suggest these things than not. Zelda would easily parse what made sense and discard what did not.

So, she was relieved when Zelda responded, "I think you are right. Whatever happened here… it did not affect the place so much as it affected _me_. Given its proximity to the others I would think this is still from before the Calamity broke free, but… then, perhaps not. My feelings toward Link shifted considerably between those last two, so a great deal of time must have passed there, too. Whether it was because of Ganon or not, though, something… _enormous_ happened on this spot. Something soul-shaking."

"Perhaps it was something good," Paya said, and she did not believe it no matter how desperately she wanted it to be true. Better by far for Zelda to remember something good here, to remember something that linked her to the Hero (because all of these were about the Hero, too, he had served her so faithfully in those bygone days) on a level that would strengthen her. Better that she be happy, and that the world be kind.

But the world was not kind, and she knew it, and Zelda knew it as she shook her head. "I suspect not."

"We could leave this, for now. We can mark this place and return to it later, after you have built up more of your strength, or… or whenever you feel you're ready."

"I will never be ready, Paya." That same smile, that same sadness, and Paya had to dig her nails hard into the palms of her hands to will the tears to stay from her eyes. "I will never be so strong that I'm _ready_ to face the past, or Ganon, or the other Champions. Yet I must, because the world will not wait, will it?" This wasn't really a question, but Paya still shook her head, partially in response and partially in defiance of the very idea. Zelda's smile warmed, however marginally. "No, I don't think so either. So. Please, give me a few moments."

Without further prompting Zelda took her place, setting her feet wide and opening the Sheikah Slate's album in her hands. She looked from the portrait, to the scenery in front of her, and then to the middle space where knowledge lurked and attention wandered lost. The Princess's eyes glowed with a golden light, and she was gone, her consciousness carried away into the past while her body stayed behind.

Paya was alone, or as much as she could be in that place, guarding a woman who was so much more than she was. She stood next to Zelda and looked at the lines of her face as she experienced memory. Then she sat on the ground, thinking to meditate, and found that she could not. From her seat she looked up at Zelda and thought for half a moment about touching her princess's arm or hand, to try to anchor her physically, as if that would protect her spiritually. But it wouldn't; that was only playing into her own desires, which was an obscene thing to do while Zelda was going through so much.

"I wish I could help you," Paya said, sure that Zelda would not hear because she had not heard the last several times, either. "Not just protect you physically… though I suspect you will need me less and less for even that, as we travel together." The lines of Zelda's face were so perfect, her hair a golden halo made radiant by the light shining from her eyes. "It is like looking at Hylia, every time I look up at you. When you channeled Mipha… I could feel her strength. Not just her physical strength, but how much you relied on her. Is that how it was with the other Champions, too? Is that how it was with Link? Were they so great of body and of heart that they could stand before the goddess and really, _truly_ help her?"

She looked out into the trees, where the wind blew softly and no dangers lurked. It was such an unusual thing, to not be on guard, to not _have_ to be.

"I think about Mipha's words all the time, now. She told me to follow my heart… but I'm not sure what that means. At least, not anymore. I want so badly to be by you, to be by you _always_ , but is that all there is? Is that all the meaning I can find in serving the most important person who's ever lived? The Champions were all by you, and … and I was _there_ , I could feel how much Mipha cared about you as if it were written on her face, and I don't understand how she or the others could…"

She buried her face in her hands, trying to wrangle the maelstrom inside of her, failing. She breathed, slowly, counting the breaths as if fighting off nausea.

On Zelda's back, the Lightscale Trident glowed. Paya did not see that. But then it whispered, so low she did not understand the words, and that made her look up.

* * *

She was running in the rain, running so hard she thought her heart was going to collapse in her chest, and Link was pulling her behind him, all she could hear was the pounding of his boots in the water and the pounding of her heart in her ears and none of it mattered at all because the world had ended.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE_**

Whew! Got this one up a bit faster, thankfully, so not quite as much to worry about now! The next one will come a bit quicker too, I think.

I wanted this chapter to be a bit of a palette cleanser, which is why I chose to stick the frog memory right here. To avoid _some_ degree of whiplash I'm leaving the next memory (you know which one it is) for the next chapter. Please let me know if the effect created is all right!

Also, are all of you OK with cliffhangers like this one? I wanted a natural break point and lead-in for the next chapter, and thought building it around those two potential scenes would work pretty well, but if you think it can be improved then please let me know.

And thank you, as ever, for reading.


	19. Despair

They had not stopped running since Hyrule Castle fell. Such a clear image in her mind, and it would be more comfortable to pretend that her powers made it sharper but that would be a lie: the plumes of dust and smoke as the Guardians turned on the people, the smell of fires burning out of control, the screams, each of these would have been etched into her mind just as clearly if she had never awakened at all. She had seen the maelstrom in the sky above the castle, had seen the fire in its eyes flare terribly as it gazed out from the highest parapet. Her father had been dead by then; she had felt him die, by the blessing and the curse of Hylia, and as Ganon looked at her she understood that the beast _wanted_ her to know that. Oh, it hated her, it hated her _so much_ —

And then Link had her by the hand and they had run. He was faster than she was on her best day and her dress weighed her down but they ran as if flying, his strength letting him pull her along so it was all she could do to lift her feet and keep from being dragged. The Guardians had come after them, and she had thrown the power at them like a weapon, and those at the front fell to pieces, lifeless, as those at the rear fell back. Ganon bellowed from the castle, challenging them, challenging _her_ , but did not pursue.

The Yiga Clan appeared before them on the road, and Zelda did not even see how Link killed them; he moved his sword as if cutting the air and they fell and the knight pulled his princess on, on, to the east.

The world melted until running was all that there had ever been, until her physical body was separated from celestial awareness by the wall of exhaustion, and her breath came in great ragged gasps. The sounds of dying and the smell of fires faded as grass was replaced by trees, the green blur of the world now shot through with brown, and every step they took became indistinguishable from every other. She did not feel the rain as it fell on her, on them. She barely knew Link was there, now.

Her father was dead. Hyrule was burning. She had found the power, but not soon enough. Not soon enough. Even in her greatest moment of actualization, she had failed. Hylia was weeping, surely.

Then something inside of her body stopped obeying her and one of her feet came down wrong and she fell, her hand slipping out of Link's. Falling into the water and the mud was a shock of cold and pressure that jolted her out of her exhaustion and she struggled up to her hands and knees as Link knelt in front of her, and she could not look at his face but she knew, _knew_ the expression that he wore as he waited for her to rise.

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," she said over the rain, not looking up. The words came slowly, her breathing was wild and she could not get it under control, quite. "We were supposed to face Ganon together. We were supposed to have time. I was… I was supposed to be ready."

He said nothing in response; here, faced with her grief, he wouldn't. She sometimes wondered if he was afraid of how strongly she felt things; now she understood the real truth, that he had always wanted to give her the space she needed, had never known when to intercede on her behalf. He had tried so desperately to respect her and the burdens that she bore. Everything was different, just based on how much she could see. Even her conversations with her father.

"My father," and getting the words out was an effort so pronounced she thought she might choke on them, "I… I felt it. I felt it when he." She swallowed. No. She had to be calm now. Even if that was a farce, so terrible a lie it drifted into the comical, she had to pretend to calm. "I thought we… I thought we six would fight Ganon, and that together we would win. And I knew someone might get hurt, but… for a moment, I believed. I imagined we would end the threat to our kingdom, and all would be well."

 _Ganon's power filled the castle in moments, the enormity of its hatred and its fury billowing like a storm that never ceased to thunder. He felt that malice in the air, as all his guards did, and it was a painful thing. Deeper than pain, though, was fear, and that not for himself._

"I imagined that after it was over, I would go to my father, and he would receive me with open arms, and he would…" Now she sat up, folding her hands on her lap. She wondered if her face spoke calm; she hoped it did. Link was looking at her, now, and no one else in the kingdom would have been able to read the concern in his eyes. "He has never smiled since my mother died. I allowed myself to dream that, the threat ended and our people safe, he would be happy again. That he would speak to me as a father, rather than a king."

 _The beast was everywhere, a billowing miasma that suggested at shapes and claws and fires. The forward guard rushed to meet it, did not even cry out as it cut them down. With what force did it destroy them? He could not have said. That it would crush him as easily seemed certain_.

"My awareness allowed me to reach out to him, to feel his thoughts as Ganon turned its wrath on the castle and the people in it. I don't think he understood what we were dealing with… but why would he, when we didn't?" She wiped the rain from her eyebrows with her fingertips. "Do you remember my father's sword? So simple, with no ornamentation. A soldier's weapon, meant for real use. I have never seen him hold it, but he did, at the end."

 _Steel in his hands, steel bared on every side of him by his personal guard as the atrocity peered with eyes like lanterns held in the mouth of a cave. Fine. If he died, he would die fighting. Or, if not fighting, then he would die defiant_.

"He wasn't even afraid, really. He accepted his death as soon as the earth shook. I couldn't call out to him—Ganon's power defiled that place and I couldn't have done it even with all my strength—but I could still hear him. And do you know what he was thinking, at the end? I thought that he had spent the last decade and more mourning my mother, lost in the shadow of her passing as I've been, and that he might be thinking of her, but do you know what he was _really_ thinking?"

 _"Zelda," he said, so low that the men around him could never hear it, his voice quiet with its shame and its sorrow as apocalypse bore down on him._

"He was thinking of me. He was thinking of me at the end, and he wasn't angry, or resentful, or." Oh. There it was, then. It was stuck inside of her and she couldn't get it out, and the rain was falling heavily on her face.

 _"I am sorry I did not love you better." The darkness took him, and he was no more_.

The words were too large to get out, the pain of its so deeply-set that the whole of Hylia's power could not dislodge it, and she buried her face in her hands and refused to breathe for fear she would wail and wished Link would look away as her body shook.

* * *

The light of the ghost fires was gentle, lacking any of the harshness of terrestrial fire. It was bewitching; one could lose themselves, looking at the flame for too long. Paya would not, though; the fact of the ghost sitting next to her was… if not alarming, then at least arresting.

They sat in the shade of a tree some little distance from Zelda, facing her so that Paya (or perhaps both of them) could keep an eye on the princess as she recalled some long-gone day. The sun that filtered down through the leaves did not hit Mipha in the same way that it hit Paya; it didn't _fail_ to throw shadows on her, exactly, but those shadows were indistinct, soft around the edges, as if passing through water to reach the bottom of a pool. The Lightscale Trident shimmered on Zelda's back, apparently the medium through which Mipha could communicate with the living. That she could do _this_ , though, was more than Paya had imagined; perhaps it was the effect of Zelda's power.

Neither of them had spoken for nearly a minute. She couldn't guess why _Mipha_ wasn't talking, after having gone to all the trouble of physically manifesting and then sitting under a tree with her, but the Zora princess seemed peaceful, almost serene, her golden eyes locked firmly on Zelda.

"It is a very difficult thing," and Paya flinched as Mipha broke the silence, "to be oneself around people you think of as being divine. For some people that might be a monarch, or a god. In this case, you happen to be dealing with both in one body." Now Mipha looked at _her_ , and she felt the color rise in her face at the intensity in the dead woman's gaze. "It can be frightening, can't it?"

"I w-w-wouldn't say frightening," Paya said, focusing hard on the words, trying to pick them, flushing even harder as she stuttered. "Maybe… overwhelming. Being around her, trying to help her… it all makes me feel very small."

"Does that discourage you?"

"No! No. It… _frustrates_ me, maybe, but I don't think anything could discourage me. I will follow Zelda all my life, through any danger, to see her safely accomplish her goals. It's just that… what if I can't help her? When the time comes, she will go to war with the Calamity itself, and fight alongside the Hero. How can I, next to those…?" She held her hands up, then lowered them. "She seems so much greater than anything I could ever be."

Mipha turned her attention back to Zelda and was silent. The sun was warm, and the song of birds could be heard cleanly from miles away. Such a peaceful place, this, as if the weight of Zelda's memories kept away the outside world. Maybe that was true; if anything was so powerful, then Zelda would be.

At last Mipha spoke. "You see her walking down the path of her destiny, and on her shoulders she carries the burden of the entire world. The world is unkind, unfair, and keeps piling its sorrows on top of her own. It never allows her to forget anything, to set down her weight for even a moment, and you can see how that pressure changes her, how it would change _anyone_. Every day she is a new person, a person more able to bear that weight—or so she tells herself, and she grows quieter, and quieter, and more distant. You see how much she carries by herself, and you wish you could help her." Mipha extended one hand, palm up, as if reaching for the hand of someone only she could see. "But she's so far away from you, removed from you by the fact of destiny and her burden and her _greatness_ , and you are only yourself, and it seems like you may never reach her. Every day she gets further away. Every day you feel… more and more helpless. More and more apart from her. Until you think to yourself, 'what can I do? How can I reach her? How can I keep her, as she was?'"

"Yes," because nothing else was even possible to say. Mipha spoke so clearly to her own experiences that it was as if her mind was being read. But she _didn't_ read minds, Paya did not think; she spoke from her own experience. Maybe… maybe… "Did you." She swallowed, tried to compose herself as Mipha's gaze returned to her. Oh, she couldn't ask this, but she _had_ to. "Did you love her, too?"

And there were so many ways to read that word, but Mipha knew which she meant, and her mouth turned up in a smile so sad that Paya could not grasp the enormity of what it was supposed to represent.

"No. I loved another."

* * *

The rain fell; it cared not for her grief. The rain fell, and the Hero waited, and Zelda lowered her hands and raised her face and she breathed and the forest was alive around her, so alive and she could feel every life like seeing points of light in a moonless sky. That feeling, that knowledge, made her calmer.

"The fight isn't over," Link said, his voice cautious, almost hesitant. He was trying to protect her, still, protect her even from the reality of the world around her. But he couldn't protect her from this, and they both knew it.

"Yes. Of course, you're right." She tried to stand, found she did not have the energy for it yet, did not care that her leg was beginning to cramp. That didn't matter. "The fight continues. Even if… even if the castle is lost, we can still fight Ganon. We must regroup and formulate a plan. Engage it on the grounds of our choosing. We can still save Hyrule." _Hold on to that. Hold on to it as if it's all that matters, because right now it is. Don't think of anything else. Push it all away, put it out of your mind, because if you let it in then you won't be able to fight_.

"We need to reach the other Champions," he said, because he always considered himself one of them, even if he stood apart. His faith in them was even more sure than hers.

"Agreed. I will reach out to them. If I focus, I should be able to communicate; it will allow us to coordinate more effectively, and hopefully we can have a plan ready in short order." She looked to him, then, because of course she still looked to him for his approval, and at his nod she felt a kind of relief. If he agreed with her, then it could be a shared decision, and shared responsibility.

With her thoughts she reached out—and, out of familiarity and love, first she reached to the southwest, where Vah Naboris would even now be crossing the expanse between the Gerudo Desert and the verdant fields of Hyrule. Urbosa would be there, and perhaps she would see the fires from Castle Town, and never more in Zelda's life had she needed the assurance that the chief of the Gerudo could give her, never more did she need her strength, and with a desperate gladness she reached out—

And found nothing. And, perhaps, in that moment, she understood.

With redoubled effort she threw more of her awareness, grabbing hold of Vah Naboris itself. The beast was where she expected, standing astride the mountains that formed the line between the desert and the kingdom of Hyrule. But when she reached out for Urbosa, calling out with the strength of her heart, there was no answer, save an echo.

An echo, and then the rumble of laughter from the Blight that sat in the Divine Beast's heart, sword wet with blood.

"No," she said out loud, because she saw clearly in her mind's eye what had happened and she would defy that which could not be defied. She did not see as Link leaned in closer, touching her shoulder with his hand, something that he would only do in moments of absolute need—for himself _and_ for her.

To the northwest Vah Medoh sailed an empty sky, and its pilot's heart beat no more.

"No! NO!"

To the east Vah Ruta bellowed at the sky and Mipha's light had gone out within it.

"Urbosa! Revali! Mipha! Daruk!"

And Daruk was cold as Vah Rudania stalked back up the side of Death Mountain.

The world slipped away from her and she was spinning through oblivion, and she must have gotten to her feet because now she was falling, Link's arms were around her and she was still falling, she was going to drag him down into the dark too and he wouldn't be able to hold her up and she couldn't help him she couldn't help _anyone_.

"Please! You were supposed to be here! I was supposed to fight with you! We were… I was—"

 _I hope you will remember this: I will be here for you. You are not alone._

 _Rest, little bird. You can lean on me for as long as you need._

 _Well. I suppose if you're falling, I had better catch you._

 _Chin up, Princess! No matter what it takes, we'll get this done. Together._

She was the sun and she was going out, all the darkness in the universe was pressing in on her from every side and she wasn't crying out in words anymore, she had taken the promises of those she loved best and broken them on their behalves, made them into liars even as she killed them, and they were _gone_ and they could not be here for her. They were dead, they were all dead, and she had let them die.

The Hero's arms anchored her, refusing to let her fall, and she buried her face against his shoulder and she began to scream, falling deeper and deeper in the dark of a world that had been robbed of its most courageous.

* * *

"Destiny pushes at her back," Mipha said. "She's driven by it, even if she doesn't realize it. To say that she and the Hero are part of a cycle is… it detracts from the enormity of what they must accomplish, makes it sound like they're only playing roles that have been laid out before them, but in another sense, it is true. The Hero, the Princess, and Ganon… they are bound together. Perhaps it is Ganon that binds the other two to him, or the Princess and the Hero who bind themselves to each other to face Ganon." Mipha shook her head. "Link and Zelda walk a terrible road together. They have no other choice."

That was not a new thought for Paya; she had grown up hearing stories from her grandmother, not just of the heroes and princesses of the ancient past but of the _living_ hero and princess, who even then were in the world. When she had been a girl she had fallen in love with the stories of Link, of his strength and his devotion and his courage when battling the dark on behalf of the entire world, and she had spent long nights crying over the frustration of Zelda's endless pilgrimage. They were the stories that had defined her entire life, had shaped how she understood heroism and goodness and perseverance; that those people were alive now, that they were carrying on the work of legends, was as if she shared the world with gods.

"How did you deal with that? The Champions were charged with aiding figures of legend, participating in a battle that has been waged since before recorded history. How did you… how did you feel like you weren't useless?" She heard the words she had just spoken, flushed with shame. "I'm sorry. I just mean… how did…" She looked at Mipha then, locking eyes with the Champion, and now she would not look away. "I saw you fight the beast in Vah Ruta. I see how Zelda speaks of you, how much she cared about you… about _all_ of you. How important you were to her, and how you eased her burdens. You stood next to the goddess incarnate, Lady Mipha, and could still stand tall. I can see that greatness by the effect you had on the world and the people you knew. How did you do that? How were you so heroic, so great, even when you stood next to the goddess?"

She had expected another long pause as Mipha considered the words; the quickness of the answer caught her off-guard.

"I wasn't." These words were spoken easily, Mipha's tone relaxed, her smile warm and genuine. "I could fight, yes, and I had an affinity with Vah Ruta… but no one in the world can fight, when compared to the Hero, and no one knew if I would be able to control Vah Ruta when I accepted my place as a Champion."

"Then…"

"When I agreed to pilot Vah Ruta, it was—at least partially—for selfish reasons. I wanted to protect my people, yes, and I knew the Calamity had to be stopped… but I had my own motives, still. Someone I had to protect, to the exclusion of all other considerations. And when I saw Zelda I understood that I was looking at someone with a destiny that could eclipse an entire age, someone whose work would save the world so completely that there was no comparing to her. She was like the center of the universe, in her way." The ghost fires hummed, barely audible in the breeze. "But she was a person, too, and it hurt her so badly when she could not live up to her own expectations. I understood that pain, enough to reach out to her, to try to support her. We supported each other, in our way, though my support alone was not enough to keep her afloat. She needed each of us, all of the Champions, or she never would have been able to bear it." A pause. "I still think, sometimes, of the relationship she had with Link. How they must have drawn strength from each other, too. They, entwined by fate, destined to face the Calamity together. Heroes. One of them nearly a god." Mipha sighed. "But people, at their heart. Link closed himself off from us, but Zelda did not. She needed to be connected, so we were there for her."

"That's all?" It seemed too simple, so much so that she did not even mind that the question was impertinent, ungrateful, rude.

"Yes. I think perhaps you were hoping that I would share with you some secret that would unlock a part of yourself that you were not aware of, that would allow you to be a hero worthy of standing next to her by virtue of that heroism." That same smile again, so sad that it brought tears to Paya's eyes. "Link and I grew up together, and I can tell you with certainty: heroes are not born, Paya, no matter what destiny has in store for them. They are made through struggle, and hardship, and perseverance, and a deep, abiding compassion in the face of the worst of the world. Heroes are _forged_."

* * *

They were gone, and the gap it left inside of her was as wide as the world, a pit into which every shred of her could drop and never touch the sides or the bottom. She would fall forever and ever, reaching out for their hands, and those hands could reach back, and all their fingers would slip through each other.

The world was empty. Her father vanished into the dark, the Champions' lives lost in battles they could not even _fight_ , and it wasn't until that moment that she realized how much of herself she had invested in them. The pillars holding her up had shattered, and the abyss yawned beneath her.

It is impossible to say how long she was like that; time was less meaningful through the lens of the goddess's power, and even discounting that… it was like a dream. Not a nightmare but a dream, a dream with the quality of time embedded in its fabric, and she drifted for what was a very long time.

There was no numbness; she had not one moment of respite from the rawness of it. She could not force their faces from her mind. The solid warmth of Urbosa's shoulder. The cool touch of Mipha's fingers on her temples. Daruk's hand on her back, shielding her from fire and the world. Revali, wings unfurled, carrying her through the maelstrom. Gone, now, like shattered glass, except that they were not objects, they were living souls, and they had promised her they would be there, and she had promised them that she would help them, and every promise was broken.

Link's arms were around her, holding her to him as her screaming tapered off to sobbing, as she drew the goddess's awareness back into herself and retreated into the relative deafness and blindness of her own senses.

"Please," she said to him, breathing in ragged gasps between the sobs, her voice raw from wailing, and she knew that she was not fully herself, would not be speaking if she was, but this was inside of her and he was out there, anchoring her, and it was all that really mattered, "please don't leave me. I can't lose you." _I can't kill you, too. I would die to follow you, there would be nothing left_. "Please, Link. Please. Please."

In another life, even simply another time, she would have been ashamed of what she had just realized, would have hated herself for the weakness that it spoke to, would have rejected him simply because of her own desperation, but here, now, at the end of everything, she could not deny insistent reality: he was all she had left. Everything and everyone else she loved was gone.

"Zelda."

Something in his tone cut to the core of her, and the haze lifted, and when she looked up the rain fell on her face and she realized it was there as if for the first time. The expression in his eyes was steady—beyond steady. If she had looked into the heart of him now she would have seen a pain to match her own, but it did not reflect in his eyes, did not show in the lines of his face or the strength of his voice. He was still here, still the pillar, and all the world might crumble but he would endure.

"We will finish this. Together."

She relaxed, and he let go of her, and she took a couple of steps back from him. He was of a height with her, the thickness of his bootheels making him slightly taller compared to her in sandals, and she looked up at him in the rain. He never flinched; he never showed his weakness, or his exhaustion, or his pain. The darkness burning in her chest cooled in the light of his eyes. The Master Sword rested on his back, and on his shoulders he carried the world.

"I will be with you at the end."

And the world seemed right, impossibly, _obscenely_ , as they stood among the trees in the rain.

The world was very quiet.

 _Answer his strength with your own. You must be as strong for him as he is for you._

Then the bushes rustled, and Zelda tore her eyes from him as Impa leaped into the clearing. Her armor was singed and slashed open in multiple places, but she was unharmed, and her hair was still tied without a strand out of place.

"Princess!"

"Impa," she replied, with a calmness she would not have believed of herself only moments ago. _Should I be ashamed that I drew so much strength from him, instead of myself? No. Take it, for now_. "The other Champions have fallen in battle."

Impa hissed between her teeth, which was as much emotion as she ever showed. "As you say, Princess. The defense against Ganon's forces is no more successful in other theaters. We managed to destroy less than ten percent of the Guardians before they fled Hyrule Castle Town; word has only now reached me of their next destination."

She nodded her head as a sign for her attendant to continue.

"The Guardians have split into two distinct groups of roughly equal size. One of them appears to be charging toward Akkala, while the other is headed toward Hateno."

"And Ganon?"

"I do not know, Your Grace. I had assumed that the Calamity had remained in Hyrule Castle, but we don't have the means to actually track it." She looked up, seemed to struggle with an urge, and then decided against caution. "I had thought that your powers might allow you to."

"It has hidden itself from me; I have not been able to detect it since my father died." She looked to Link, in apology for not mentioning that to him before, before returning her attention to Impa. "What forces are there arrayed to stand against the Guardians?" _Do not think of the Divine Beasts; pray that Ganon cannot control them yet_.

"The Akkala Citadel is fully manned and armed; the captains in charge of it have been preparing for this day, in case things went awry. Hateno Fortress, on the other hand, is thinly manned, and the region behind it much more densely populated."

So then. The choice was before her, and of course there was no choice to be made but still she would consign the brave men and women at the Citadel to die without aid.

These were the things that Ganon forced upon people.

"We will go to Hateno. If we hurry, we may be able to reach it before the Guardians breach the wall. Impa, are you well enough to travel?" No words in response; instead Impa kneeled and saluted in the same motion. "Accompany us. There is much that I must share with you."

She drew on the power of the goddess, and the golden light filled her, transforming the rain above her into a blizzard of shimmering prisms. Impa rose, and Link betrayed nothing.

They three ran on, through the dark and the rain.

* * *

"I don't have a lesson for you, or any easy advice." The happy smile, rather than the sad one. "What will happen… who she is… that's out of your hands. All you can do is support her, help her. She relies on you already, doesn't she?"

"She says she does. I think on some level that's true, even. I've… helped her, at times." She remembered with perfect clarity the sight of a Yiga's sickle blade, of Zelda's expression of perfect uncomprehending shock. "But I still don't feel… _worthy_. Like I should be next to her."

Mipha's hand was warm on her arm. "Do not try to be worthy of standing next to her. We are never truly worthy of the people we love or wish to protect. Instead… try to be worthy of the feeling you have. Be worthy of yourself, first."

Mipha withdrew her hand, but the warmth remained.

The birds were still singing.

Then Zelda came to with a gasp. She looked around, all ease, and when she saw Paya and Mipha sitting under the tree she did not seem surprised. Instead she walked to them, feet a little unsteady from standing still for so long, and then took her place under the tree between the two of them.

Paya handed her a handkerchief, received quiet thanks in response as Zelda cleaned her face.

The sun was still shining.

"I remembered learning of when you died," Zelda said. She was quiet. Then: "I find myself wanting to apologize to you, over and over, for my failures."

"And I to you. I told you I would be there for you… and when it counted most, I wasn't."

"You are here for me now."

"Yes. And you, too."

The words went around her. Paya listened to them, the tones of remembered intimacies and broken-then-mended trusts, the regret and the relief. She imagined herself talking to Zelda that way; one day, perhaps, without the depths of grief. One day she'd give real voice to this warmth in her chest.

 _I will be worthy_.

They three sat in the dappled sunlight for a while longer.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE:_** The world gets in the way, doesn't it? So I'm late again. I apologize. It would not be this way if I could help it, but between taking classes and doing work it's not something I have real control over.

So, here we are! This is another sequence I was really looking forward to writing, and though it was difficult I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out. It's a pretty hard pivot from the previous chapter, which is why I separated it into is own thing.

It's been brought up to me that in a lot of ways this isn't a very good Zelink story, and that too much focus is given to Paya and her relationship with Zelda. I want to apologize formally if I have betrayed anyone's expectations with this story and its contents; if you have problems with the story and want to air them, or think I could stand to take some pointers on how to improve things, please let me know in a message or a review. You can of course reply anonymously if you'd prefer, but please don't feel like you have to; I am more than happy to receive friendly advice.

Regardless, I hope you like this chapter, and that it's delivering on a few key principles of the fic. We're heading to Death Mountain next. If there's anything you're looking forward to seeing, please let me know; I delight in seeing where people think the story might go.

Thank you, as ever, for reading.


	20. Death Mountain

Paya walked across the yard of the ruined home, surrounded by the specters of lives once lived in a quiet kind of peace. So little of the structures were left standing that it was impossible to say, with confidence, what they were supposed to be—perhaps the roof there belonged to a house, and the smaller space next to it a tool shed? Or a cucco coop? Whatever buildings had stood here, once, whatever lives had been lived, all of that was gone, replaced with the wind and the faint, rhythmic sound of dripping water, amplified dozens of times.

Paya wore her stealth armor, rendering her footsteps silent. Despite that, despite the _air_ of silence around her, she walked openly through the middle of the yard, where she could be plainly seen from almost any direction: anything with eyes would have seen how little she paid attention to her surroundings, the sword and shield she held that each gave off a faint golden light. She and Zelda had avoided many Yiga on their journey, choosing to forego confrontation if at all possible; luckily none were present, now. Still. She was not alone.

The sound of dripping water stopped, and Paya grew very still, looking to the edge of the ruined roof, waiting. She did not need to wait for very long.

What peeked around the side of the house could not be described as having a _face_ —to have a face was to present some impression of cohesion, of wholeness, of a natural fitting together of pieces. There was none of that on the head beneath its hood: the thing's eyes were like an image of glowing embers that had been painted onto the front of its skull, permanently turned up in unbelieving delight, and below that were cheekbones that protruded out even further than the lump it had in place of a nose. Its mouth was turned up into a permanent rictus grin, a grin large enough to bite through a hydromelon, teeth too large to even be used as knives, taking up nearly its entire face. Each of these things, on their own, was enough; but more than that, just from looking one could not say if its "face" was fixed on its _head_. The robes the creature wore suggested that it had a silhouette like a human, but its face only peered out from beneath the bottom of the hood, and its arms protruded seemingly straight out of its temples.

The wild fire of its eyes flared as it saw her and the Wizzrobe waved merrily, tittering, the skeletal fingers of its hand swaying back and forth like the leaves of a frond. Paya did not wave back, but it seemed undisturbed by this. In its other hand it held an ice rod, and it was on that weapon that Paya's eyes were set.

Then it vanished. Where it had been there was only a pressure in the air, a _sense_ of that presence that was not bound by the concrete. The sound of dripping water started again, and with each drop the air rippled like the surface of a pond. One could trace the direction of its steps as it walked through the shadowed realm that stood next to the physical, its magic leaving impressions on the space it passed through.

It recoalesced in the air behind Paya, shrieking with gleeful laughter, waving the ice rod above its head as its magic gathered. It pulled back its arm, the rod's cold forming a layer of rime on any surface it passed near, and its expression never changed as it prepared to kill the foolish woman who had wandered into its territory.

The fire arrow struck it in the side, and it had enough time to gasp in pain before exploding into vapor. The burst of sound was followed by the heavy thump of the now-dormant ice rod falling to the ground; when Paya turned it was noiseless, as much as when Zelda stepped out of the shadows of another building, clad in her own stealth armor and bow in hand.

"You're getting much better with that," Paya said, and it was true. She could have been more precise in her timing, killed the Wizzrobe as it was coming out of its woven space—but this was the first Wizzrobe Zelda had ever _seen_ , much less fought. Everything she'd done had been based on Paya's less-than-perfect description of what to expect. Really, she'd done spectacularly.

Zelda pulled down her mask, and under it she was grinning in the elation of a task accomplished. "Thank you. I was so _nervous_ , I was afraid my hands would shake too much to take the shot." She blew a breath out between her teeth, replacing her bow on her back, but she was still smiling as she crossed the yard. "Those creatures are fascinating, aren't they? All of Ganon's thralls seem able to use weapons, and the lynel have a deep affinity for a kind of naturalistic magic, but that Wizzrobe? It seemed like a _sorcerer_. Like it had actually studied the _subject_ of magic."

"It might have. The Sheikah have spent centuries trying to learn how their weapons are produced, but we've never found the answer."

" _Really_." Zelda stooped next to the ice rod, staring at it. "That's _very_ interesting, then. If my understanding of the Guardians is correct, then ancient Sheikah technology is based on the usage of naturally occurring energies—or at least energies that can be found in the environment, even though they seem to align with the powers of Hylia." Gently she picked the weapon up in her hands, and the air of cold it gave off was so pronounced that even at the foot of Death Mountain her breath came out in plumes of condensation. "Perhaps Wizzrobes are drawing on different sources. The energies coursing through this object aren't wholly dissimilar to the energies that Naydra channels. I wonder if they are somehow related."

Paya waited as Zelda turned the rod over in her hands, taking in every line, possibly turning her enhanced senses toward it. There was little else _for_ her to do; when Zelda's mind was turned toward the task of examining something, the gears turning in her skull would drown out the rest of the world.

After perhaps a full minute spent in silence Zelda placed the weapon at her belt, letting it hang on the side opposite of the Sheikah Slate. When she got up, dusting her hands off, she had lost that expression of elation: now she was back to work, ready to march for the rest of the day if the distance required it of her. It wouldn't—the stable was very nearby—but something about that determination, that surety of Zelda's purpose, made Paya feel surer about her _own_ purpose. This was where she was supposed to be.

There was a shrine overlooking the abandoned hamlet, and it was there they went first. Behind them, the open spaces were truly silent.

* * *

Foothill Stable was much like the other stables in the network that spread across the ruined kingdom; that uniformity lent a certain comfort, Zelda thought. The stables were well-ordered, oases of rest and relative safety in the vast wilds that had swallowed Hyrule following the Calamity. She was looking forward to the rest; sleeping under the stars was wonderful, fulfilling in a way that she suspected she might have yearned for in her prior life, but there was something to be said for a real roof and a real bed, when one could have them. She was sure their horses would appreciate the shelter, too.

A woman of age with Paya and Zelda was sweeping the ground in front of the stable, though when she heard the approach of hooves she looked up. Zelda could not have said what it was in their appearance that made her grin that way, but she returned the smile as best she could, raising her hand in greeting. Paya did not respond to the woman; her attention was turned elsewhere, taking in the environment and the state of the stable and the places where shadows lay thick.

"Welcome to Foothill Stable. My name's Gaile." Instead of waiting for them to introduce themselves, Gaile took a quick look at them and said, "If you're stopping by this stable, that you're probably headed to Goron City?"

"Yes, we are! We were hoping to rest here for the night and then set out in the morning. I hope that there's enough room, and—" she stopped, because Gaile was frowning at both her and Paya in turn, enough so that it had caught Paya's attention, too. "Is something the matter?"

Gaile showed her teeth, not quite tutting but coming close. "Are you really going to Goron City dressed like _that_?"

Reflexively, Zelda looked down at herself: she had changed out of her stealth armor and back into her traveling trousers and Hylian-cut tunic. It was a bit warm, true, but the tunic still breathed excellently, and she was still perfectly comfortable so long as she kept her hood back and hair up. "Is there something… _wrong_ with how I'm dressed?"

"See… this is how tourists get a bad rep." Gaile shook her head and Zelda looked at Paya to find the silver-haired woman staring daggers at the stable attendant. Gaile, for her part, either did not notice or did not mind. "The path to Goron City is sheer cliff after sheer cliff, and it gets so hot past the second checkpoint that your body will catch fire."

Zelda didn't even try to hide her shock; the idea was so preposterous that at first she thought the woman was joking. She looked to Paya, to see if there was some element of the humor she didn't understand, but Paya just nodded grimly without taking her eyes away from Gaile.

"Normally I wouldn't stop a stranger from heading to their doom, but I kinda like ya. So I guess I have no choice but to sell you these fireproof elixirs. They can protect you from the burning air." With a flourish, produced from Zelda was not sure _where_ , Gaile presented a box filled with small bottles of dark-colored tincture. "Even Goron City regulars usually take at least three elixirs with them. Each."

Six, then. "Fascinating! What are they made from?" Paya shifted on her horse in the way that communicated she wanted to speak but did not want to interrupt; Zelda ignored her, for just a minute.

"Fireproof lizards, locally sourced! Fortified with the freshest monster parts. Each one will last you at least six hours, guaranteed!"

"Six hours… I see. Eighteen hours to make it to Goron City, then." Now she turned to Paya in earnest. "Paya, how long do you think it should take us to reach Goron City? Based on what merchants have told you."

Paya tilted her head back, making estimations in her head. "Well. If we keep a good pace the entire time, and assume the monsters are as common on this trail as the one leading to Zora's Domain, and allowing two hours for scaling the tower on our way up—" She must have assumed they would slay every monster on their way up, or at least Zelda _hoped_ that's what she was assuming; she intended to make the roads as safe as possible for other travelers, however temporarily. "Fifteen to eighteen hours, if we use our paragliders to save time when descending from the tower." Then, much lower, so only Zelda could hear her though it was obvious to anyone looking that she was only being discreet up to a point: "Zelda, I must protest. We have no reason to pay for elixirs when we can make them ourselves."

Just as low: "It's good for the local economy, Paya!" That wasn't true. Well, it _was_ true, but it wasn't why Zelda was doing this. But Paya didn't need to know that. Then, turning back to Gaile, "How much are they?"

"It's 60 rupees for one, 110 rupees for two, and 150 rupees for three. Buying in bulk pays off here!"

"That seems like a good deal! It will be 270 rupees for six, then?"

The shadow that passed over Gaile's face communicated exactly how perfectly she'd read Zelda's reasoning. "No, that would be 300 rupees. They're sold in sets of three."

Ah, so _that_ was the grift, then. Zelda scowled down from her horse, then dismounted to stand on level with Gaile. Paya did not dismount, only watched the proceedings. "Do you mean to say that you would charge me 40 rupees for the third elixir, because it is better to buy in bulk, and then ask me to pay 60 rupees for the fourth?"

Now the shadow had become a genuine scowl, tinged with the sense that she was losing the sale. "Yes. They're sold in sets of three. Every new set is according to the same pricing as the previous set. Because I _like_ ya, though that's starting to fade." Zelda paid her no mind; instead she opened one of the pockets on her tunic and drew out one of her notepads, flipping through it. "What's that?"

"Oh, this? It's where I keep my notes on elixir-making." First the table of contents, now to the appendices referencing the effects of different monster parts. "You said six hours of effect. What parts go into your elixirs?"

"That, uh. Trade secret."

"Hm. Assuming you're using readily available ingredients in addition to the lizards, then… Chuchu Jelly? No, they're not common enough in this area. I'm guessing you're not fighting _moblins_. Six hours of effectiveness…. I'm going to guess three bokoblin horns." This was not a guess, but that not-a-guess was confirmed by the widening of Gaile's eyes. "I thought so. The effect of monster keratin is uniform across different species, so you would want to use the cheapest part available, not to mention the one that's least dangerous to acquire for yourself. I don't suppose you _do_ acquire the horns for yourself? Probably easier to buy them from travelers? And the going rate for those is 3 rupees per horn if they're in good condition…"

"Hold on, you think these are easy to just throw together like that? Catching a Fireproof Lizard takes practice and skill! You can't expect to—"

Paya cleared her throat, and both of them looked up at her. Calmly, with a perfectly neutral expression, Paya reached into one of her saddlebags and drew forth two wriggling Fireproof Lizards. "I caught these on the way here. They _should_ be more common as we go further up the trail. I think."

"I concur. They probably evolved their fireproof qualities because it is harder for their natural predators to thrive in the extreme heat of the mountain, so it should be safe to assume they will be more plentiful as we go into their preferred environ." Gaile didn't have to confirm it for her. Or not confirm it. At this point it barely mattered. "I apologize for my rudeness. I do. I would love to buy some elixirs from you and use them on our way up the mountain. But your pricing isn't… consistent, and with the bokoblin organs we have we could prepare two elixirs that will last us for fifteen hours apiece, at absolutely no cost."

"I, uh. I suppose you... could."

"Quite. Now, obviously one would want to sell these elixirs at a price above cost, and one must _also_ allow for the value of labor; still, I cannot help noticing that the third elixir costs 40 rupees. Shall we start from there?"

The air was not _that_ warm, but Gaile was visibly sweating.

* * *

The next morning, six elixirs wealthier and 240 rupees poorer, Zelda and Paya set out from the stable together. They left their horses behind, as both the air and the terrain made it impossible for the poor creatures to proceed. They started out early, rising before the sun, and they met only a small number of monsters on their way up the mountain. By mid-morning they had reached the second marker.

"All non-Gorons use extreme caution," Zelda read from the sign. They were the first words either had spoken that morning. "I suppose the Gorons don't need to worry about the heat as much."

"They are comfortable in temperatures that would kill either of us," Paya said, though from her tone it was clear that wasn't what she was thinking about. She looked back over her shoulder, as if to make sure they were alone, and then Zelda realized she _had_ been making sure of that when she continued, "I had no idea you liked to haggle."

"Oh! Oh, that. I don't, actually. Do you remember the innkeepers from Zora's Domain? They gave me some advice and told me to use it next time I suspected someone wasn't charging fairly." It made sense that Paya had waited until kilometers separated them from the stable; thinking about the exchange set Zelda's heart hammering in her chest, and thinking about how forceful she'd been made her flush in a mixture of embarrassment and excitement. In some ways it had been more exciting than fighting monsters, but in others she had the sense that she should be ashamed of herself. "Was I rude to her?"

Paya bit her lower lip in the way that said she did not want to answer the question and thought she was hiding it very well. "H-h-haggling is… inherently adversarial, I think. I-I-I couldn't do it, certainly. But that doesn't mean it was bad! That woman was definitely overcharging. My standards of behavior are… the way I've been trained, it…"

"Seemed rude."

"No! I mean." Paya stopped entirely, pressed one hand to her face. "I couldn't do it. Ever. Unless you asked me to on your behalf, but even then, I think I would be very bad at it. But Grandmother could! When I was very small I once saw her argue so aggressively over the price of a crate of spices that the merchant burst into tears and then gave her an extra jar as an apology."

She couldn't help but wince. _Oh Hylia I'm being compared to a supercentenarian._ She resolved, then and there, to never again haggle unless she was _really_ being cheated.

"Well, lesson learned. Regardless, we've arrived. Shall we apply the fireproof elixirs?"

"I think that would be prudent." Seeing Zelda uncorking her own bottle, Paya reached out and touched her arm. "These particular elixirs are best applied topically. You _can_ administer them orally and it will be just as effective, but the taste is foul and might make you feel sick."

"Oh. Thank you." Lifting the bottle to her nose, she sniffed at its contents warily. The smell _was_ quite pungent and would be just as pungent when applied to her skin. Maybe the heat of the air would help mitigate that. _Better my skin than my breath, I suppose_. "Do we need to prepare our clothing?"

"No. Your tunic and trousers are the same kind used by merchants who travel to Death Mountain, so they're made to be able to stand up to the high temperatures without being damaged. Even if they weren't, the vapors from the elixir create a barrier that should protect you within a hand's breadth of your skin—if you apply it carefully to your face and neck you won't need to treat your hair, especially if you wear it tied close to you." Then she frowned. "I'll need to treat mine, however. I apologize if that causes an unacceptable delay."

"Not at all! I admit I wasn't even thinking about my hair. Would you like help?"

She hadn't thought about it before offering; perhaps she should have. She would have decided the same anyway, she thought. Paya tried not to look up or to look excited; her nod was very carefully calm. "Yes, please. I think that will go much faster."

Zelda retrieved Paya's comb from their bags and used it to apply the elixir to Paya's loose hair, starting from the roots. It took only a very small amount of the elixir, and despite how much Paya worried (and despite _how much hair_ Paya had) the application only took a couple of minutes. The smell of the elixir, Zelda found, _was_ less offensive in the open air. Paya was very still for the entire process, eyes shut, studiously calm, and, despite everything between them, it was easy for Zelda to imagine that Paya had behaved the same way when having her hair trimmed as a child. She leaned around to look at Paya's face only once.

Then each applied the rest of their respective elixirs, and Paya helped Zelda tie her hair into a tight bun that she then covered with the climber's bandana. It was getting too hot for the hood. Paya, absorbed in tying up her own hair (a process so precise that it would be pointless for Zelda to try to help), did not notice that Zelda applied no elixir to her left forearm. That was good; she would have intervened if she'd known what Zelda was doing. It was not outside the realm of possibility (though it was very unlikely) that she might have intervened _physically_ , and that would have been embarrassing for them both. Besides, she was protecting her hand, and that was the most important thing.

Gaile had not been joking when she described the path up Death Mountain as a series of sheer cliffs; any merchants traveling this way must have been strong indeed, Zelda thought, to haul their wares straight up the cliff face that was just beyond the second marker. Not that their own loads were light, and the cliff did have a few spots where one could stop and rest if need be, but Zelda could not help reflecting on the tenacity of the people who made this trip so regularly. It was difficult _not_ to admire them.

They crested the cliff and before them spread what asserted itself in Zelda's mind as the _real_ Death Mountain: pools of exposed lava licking at the air, a heavy smell of soil and sulfur, drifting cinders that were propelled into the sky as points of light until they faded and cooled into what looked almost like black snow. The stone here was darker, perhaps as an effect of the heat or the way that the heat bent the light in the air so that everything in the distance took on a strange, wavy quality. Yes, admiration was appropriate. It was growing sharper the longer she spent thinking about it.

Their arrival startled a pigeon that had been preening near the cliff's lip; the bird took off, away from them, and flew directly into the hotter zone of Death Mountain. Zelda's eyes were locked on it, trying to find some different coloring that might indicate its adaptation to the harsher climate of Death Mountain, when it crossed some invisible barrier and promptly burst into flames, leaving a trail of smoke behind it as it rose into the air.

"Oh!" The little creature kept rising, though the arc of that rise was lowering—it had not planned to be on fire, it seemed. Zelda reached out with one hand as if to grab hold of it from a dozen meters away, which she would later reflect was purely reflexive, and also the entire reason that her arm caught fire where Paya could see it. " _Oh!_ "

She allowed herself one glance: yes, flames had _indeed_ enwreathed her left forearm, small and yellow and almost intimate in the way they danced over it. Judging by the smell, the fine blond hairs on her arm were gone; in a few seconds, her epidermis would surely follow.

Quickly, with the speed that could only come with prior planning, she dumped the rest of the fireproof elixir onto her arm and slathered it into her skin. It was _very_ effective, she found, and every spot where the elixir touched the flames winked out as if they'd never been there. When they were all out she kept massaging the elixir in, making sure that the coverage was complete with no gaps, _and_ that it was not adversely affected by putting it on _while_ the temperature was so absurd.

"Efficacy doesn't seem to be affected by the temperature at time of application. Heat transference isn't fast enough to negatively effect flesh instantly, but finer elements can be destroyed _almost_ instantly. Any exposure for longer than a few seconds would probably be…" She realized Paya had seen the whole thing, looked over at the other woman. Paya's eyes were wide and glaring and horrified and enraged all at once. "…Bad. Eheh." She grinned, tried not to look sheepish, probably failed. "All fine, see? It, um."

Paya did not grin in return.

"Well, I hypothesized that, um… you see." She had been so sure at the start of that sentence that it would end reasonably, but she did not have any proper words to explain what she'd been thinking, or why she thought that had been a good idea, and certainly not any that she could use to justify it to another person. Perhaps a joke? Humor was good at diffusing these situations, right? At communicating contrition and humility? Yes. Perhaps a joke. "I just saw the bird, you understand, and thought I would try to… fit in with the locals?"

Paya did not laugh.

They gathered up their packs and continued walking. Neither of them said another word for a long time.

* * *

Five and a half hours later they were atop Eldin Tower, reapplying their fireproof potions. Measuring the rate of decay was interesting; Zelda found one could intuit it based on the thickness of the vapor that rose up from the skin when exposed to extreme heat. Someone who used it very often could probably give a very precise estimation of how long a given coating had left before it faded entirely. As she applied the elixir to Paya's hair she could _see_ the places she had yet to touch, not by discoloration but by the thickness of the vapor. It made the job very easy, if one was thorough and observant. Which she did not feel.

The silence between them had lasted for longer than any waking period since they'd met; it had persisted through the explosions of Fire Chus, through pitched combat with Moblins and Bokoblins, through shooting down a heat-resistant pigeon and finding the meat nicely seared by the time they reached the body (which had been the basis of a filling, if bland, lunch). Even the re-application of the elixirs had been done in silence, Zelda taking her cue to get started from Paya. It was getting to her; not the fact of the silence itself, she had walked in silence for _days_ after leaving the Plateau, but the fact of her offense hung around her neck like a weight.

"I'm sorry," she said, drawing the comb through for the last time. Paya looked back, already sheepish. "No, don't. You're not allowed to feel guilty for my apology. It was a foolish thing to do, and I'm sorry that I did it. I'm sorrier that I didn't tell you about it." She packed the comb away neatly in Paya's bag as the other woman began to tie up her white hair. "I didn't believe it, I suppose, that the air could just cause one to… _combust_. It seemed preposterous. So, I wanted to see it for myself, even though I knew people had to protect themselves from it. If I hadn't experienced it for myself, it wasn't _real_." There. That put it all out, didn't it? The whole ridiculous process. "So that's why I didn't tell you I was planning to set myself on fire. I thought you would prevent me from finding out the truth."

"I would have," Paya said, but it wasn't an admonishment, not really, and Zelda tried not to sigh in relief. Satisfied with the state of her hair, Paya turned to look back at her, not rising just yet. "I was very frightened. I thought you'd been hurt." Even her frown was sheepish, and that twisted Zelda's guts into a knot. "That's why I've been so quiet; I guess I'm still processing that panic. I didn't want you to think I was angry with you, but I _was_ angry. Maybe not at you, but generally."

Silence; there wasn't much to say.

Then, Paya's frown slid away, and her mouth quirked—she did not grin, Zelda was not sure she'd ever seen Paya really grin in amusement or if she was even capable of laughing without being embarrassed of it—as she got back to her feet, hoisting her pack. "Did you learn what you wanted?"

"Oh, yes. I learned what burning hair smells like."

That got a snort, followed by Paya instantly hiding her face behind her hands, trying to pretend it hadn't happened.

That feeling of tension was bleeding away, and Zelda thought the rest of the walk up to Goron City would probably be much simpler.

As if summoning trouble with the thought, she heard a scream in the distance.

She got to her feet but Paya was already standing at the edge of the platform, leaning far out to take in the mountainside. Zelda moved to join her, drawing the Sheikah Slate and shifting to its telescopic view. The sound had come from further down the mountain, behind them. Fixing the path in the viewfinder she traced their own steps, setting the aperture to focus on the place where the footpath rounded a corner and out of sight. Five seconds passed, then ten, if they got to twenty she would start gliding back down the path to find the source of the scream—

Then a man, clearly a merchant with his heavy backpack, scrambled around the wall and came running up the trail. He was running all out, clearly seeking to escape something, his pace slowed not at all by the weight of his load. He had a shield in his hand but no weapon; had he lost it?

Behind him, at a run that easily kept pace with their quarry, were three assassins of the Yiga Clan.

"Zelda, wait!"

But she was already leaping from the tower, paraglider in her hands, and the wind and the heat whipped Paya's words away. Perhaps Paya tried to call out to her again; if she did, then this entreaty also went unheard.

 _Think. Based on the speed he's running, and my rate of ascent, assuming he keeps to the main path… they don't seem to be gaining ground on him. Are they simply running him to exhaustion, so he's easier to kill?_

She tilted the paraglider, gaining speed as she went into a dive, and if not for the strength of arm granted to her by Hylia's blessing then she would have lost control utterly and gone into freefall. The wind in her ears was all she could hear as she cruised down hundreds of meters, and the earth rose to meet her. She had to pull out of the dive or she was going to break something, but she had to reach the man almost on the spot or his attackers might reach him.

 _Careful. Careful…_

With all the strength in her forearms she wrenched the paraglider up and leveled out, the force of it taking a strength that would have snapped her wrists like dry twigs when she had woken up in the Chamber. The ground was not coming at her so quickly, now, and as she looked at the man she thought she could hear him calling for help.

Twenty feet above the ground she hit the release on her paraglider, and it collapsed, automatically folding into a shape that made it easier to store. With practiced speed she slipped it into the frame that held it against her back, and then she hit the ground rolling. The shock sent a jolt through her entire body but nothing broke, nothing _really_ hurt, and then she was on her feet and the Lightscale Trident was in her hands.

"Help!" The man's voice was gravelly, but he must have been driven by adrenaline: he didn't sound like he was even breathing hard. "Please, help me!"

"Get behind me!" she shouted to him. "I'll make sure—"

Then a grey and white streak smashed him to the ground as her attendant landed on top of him. Zelda could not see the practiced strikes of Paya's fists but she heard three rapid blows, _thock-thock-thock_ , and then the man was on the ground clutching at his throat and gasping for breath.

"Paya! What are you doing!" She ran forward, reaching out, ready to pull her friend off the merchant physically if she had to—but by the time she reached them Paya was already on her feet, turning to face the advancing assassins. No, not even turning; she was sprinting toward them, sword and shield in hand. The assassins, for their part, had stopped dead in their tracks, momentarily stunned by the explosive violence aimed at their quarry.

"That man is Yiga!" was all Paya called over her shoulder.

"Yiga?" The man at her feet? Who'd been pursued by assassins, the same ones Paya was now throwing herself at?

She looked down at him, reflexively, disbelieving. With one hand he still clutched at his throat; Paya must have nearly crushed his windpipe. He was staring up at her, and his expression was perfectly calm.

 _No panic. No surprise. He hadn't been breathing hard, had he? As if the chase had only just started. As if there was no reason for Yiga Assassins to try to kill any particular merchant. As if the only real goal was to get this man behind us, where he could put a knife into our backs._

"Princess," he said, choking, as if to confirm her stupidity.

With his free hand he reached down and pulled open his coat. Tied against his vest was a bundle of bomb arrows; five, perhaps ten. She could not have said how many. She was not looking at them for long enough before the open air of Death Mountain put them to light.

The world was blotted out by a wave of sound, and pressure, and weightlessness.

* * *

She smashed into the centermost Yiga, who had been standing further forward than his companions. He did not react fast enough to bring up his weapon or turn her away; she slammed her shield into his mask, sending him crashing to the ground.

 _Were his eyes not on me?_

Then behind her there was a roar, a wave of pressure and heat. No, he had not been looking at her. Neither had either of his fellows.

Foolishly, leaving herself completely open, she threw a glance over her shoulder.

And the world stopped, and she saw.

She saw the place on the ground where the disguised Yiga had been, the roaring flames that almost disguised the charred and broken ruin that had been a person only seconds before.

She saw the Lightscale Trident spinning through the air.

She saw Zelda, wreathed in smoke, moving as if in flight, but she was not flying, there was no life in her limbs, she was _limp_ , and Paya could not see Zelda's face through the smoke and the heat but her golden hair had come loose and was burning.

She saw the Princess of Hyrule, Hylia's strength incarnate, smash into a rock like a bird into a window. Zelda lay on the ground, left arm raised at an odd angle, smoke rising from her head, and was still.


	21. Mipha's Grace

Zelda was conscious for those twilight moments where she was in the air, spinning. Like Sidon she had no sense of direction, or speed, or gravity, only of turning in space. Thoughts were ethereal, fleeting things, and she could not gather herself enough to form them. It was similar to the feeling one might have on the very edge of sleep, when consciousness is slipping away but the world is not yet gone; only here it was insistent and seemed to last much longer. It did not, of course; it only seemed that way.

She only lost consciousness when her head struck the stone, and her skull shattered. Then there was darkness.

Zelda knew darkness; she had regained her consciousness in darkness, been called out to by the goddess in a dream, called up out of sleep. This sleep was like that one; this sleep was also death. She did not reflect upon it; she could not.

But death did not mean the same thing for her that it might for others; so, too, for anyone who carried the blessing of the Zora Champion, in other times or other places.

She dreamed. She was back in that boundless inner void that had framed her relationship with the divine and with herself since she had been born into new memory, only now the goddess was not there. Where had Hylia gone? Did she not know Zelda was here? Did she not know how enormous, how _terrible_ , this place was without her?

"Princess."

The world collapsed in on itself, Zelda's perspective condensing until it had reached a single finite point as an infinity of stars spun away into nothingness, and she became smaller and smaller—and then she was there, in the void, and Mipha was with her. Mipha's hands were on her head, and a coolness filled her thoughts.

"Mipha! You… how are you here? What happened?"

Mipha winced in an expression of sympathy (but also… was that irritation?) so sharp it embarrassed her to be on the receiving end of it. "Assassins, of the Yiga Clan. One of them was carrying bomb arrows and exposed them to the open air when you were within range. Your armor protected you from the blast—barely—until your head struck a stone on the side of the path."

 _Princess_ , he had said, and then opened his jacket to her and invited death for them both. Yes. Yes, now she remembered.

"Then I am dead."

"Almost," Mipha said, and now that sympathy added color to a smile. "I caught you on the edge of death, in the moment that you would have lost your life—that is the fullness of the power I have granted you. There is no blow so terrible, no cut so deep, that I cannot undo it. I will always heal your wounds." She seemed to catch herself and blinked rapidly, though Zelda could not have guessed as to why.

"That… is far more than I thought you had given me, Mipha. I don't know if I even understand—"

"Then I will explain it to you. Because you carry my power inside you, you _can_ use it to heal others, but when the time comes and you are most in need I can take hold of it and focus all of it on you." Now her expression was sharper, more severe. "Don't think this is limitless, Princess. It is not. Though this is my power, it is now tied to _your_ life force, and I must use all of it to save your life. Until your life force restores it, it cannot be used in this way again. When you awaken, do not fall prey to the Yiga; I will not be able to help you."

"My life force? Is it tied to Hylia's power, then?" Mipha had no answer for her, but she hadn't been seeking one; she'd only been wondering aloud. "Mipha, how long will it take before it's ready again?"

"That's… difficult to guess at. For a strong, healthy person it might take two or even three days. When I emptied my strength utterly, I could use it again after perhaps thirty hours. For you, we will not know until it has begun to recover." She sighed, as if letting go of a breath she had been holding for long minutes. "Which will begin soon. It's time for you to wake back up, Zelda. Paya must be worried sick."

 _Paya!_ She was fighting the Yiga assassins alone! Paya could surely handle herself, but—and then, without being told, she realized that time did not pass the same way in this place. Barely a heartbeat had passed since her skull struck the rock. From the perspective of someone watching, she was about to get up nearly the same instant she had landed. Hopefully that would be fast enough.

"You have been moving through your quest as a person would." _That_ caught her attention, Mipha's words… not exactly carrying an edge (she wasn't sure if Mipha was even capable of speaking sharply) but meant to be heavy, admonishing. "You cannot continue to do that."

"I _am_ a person." The words were out before she had fully formed them—the idea that she had to express it was almost preposterous. But she knew where this was going, even before Mipha continued.

"You are. So am I and the rest of the Champions. So is Link. So, once, was Ganon. But we are all more than that, aren't we? We have to be. Even if inside of ourselves we are the same weak, frail, cowardly creatures that we were born as, even if we have never truly grown at all… still we must be more than people." So difficult to read, her face, but the set of her eyes was clear. "A hundred years ago I told you that I would be there for you, that I would listen when you wanted to talk and talk when you wanted to listen, because there was common ground between us. But now you _must_ listen, because you need the truth, and the truth is this: you, and Link, and Ganon… all of you are of a kind."

The void was cold, now.

"You are a person. You have the strengths and weaknesses of a person. You have the heart of a person. But, Princess: _a person cannot do what you will do_. A person cannot stand against Ganon. A person cannot free the other Champions or regain control of the Divine Beasts. A person cannot hope to survive when the entire Yiga Clan seeks for their blood." Mipha took her hands away from Zelda's temples, and despite what Mipha was saying, something in her expression made the inside of Zelda's chest quake, not out of shame or fury or fear but love, love that was the only possible answer to the belief being invested in her now. "So, you will be more than a person. You are a legend, and you must bear the burden of a legend. I'm sorry for it, and I would help you if I could, but I cannot. You must do this yourself. Show them. Show the world that you have the strength to play your part in this story."

Three women there were in Zelda's mind, and often she thought of them as partaking in a quiet war for the heart of her identity: the amnesiac, the princess, and the oracle of the goddess. How often she thought of them fighting; she, the amnesiac who sought to preserve her identity and her connections and her loves and her fears against those of the other two. To be told that she could not do this, to be told that she could not preserve herself, protect herself… something raged inside of her. She wanted to be angry; not just to scream but to lash out, not to explain but to _illustrate_ that injustice.

And it would have been foolish, she knew, to burden a dead woman with her frustrations. Foolish and small. _Because she is right. Of course she is_.

The golden power was inside of her, and deeper than that, carried on a level so fundamental it brushed against the primordial, something far more terrible slept. Both called out to her: both told her of the legend. She would be a part of it; her choice was to either be run down by it or to sink her teeth into it and make it her own. The goddess had spoken to her, and Mipha had admonished her, and her father had left her with the regrets of the family she had failed, and Link… Link fought on, and on, and on. Could she do less? But no, that was the wrong question, the wrong comparison to be made. It did not matter what Link was doing. What mattered was her answer to that question: would she rise? Or would Ganon prevail?

 _I cannot be three._

The power flared inside of her, the chiming of the creation-bell, and that void was filled with light as life returned to her body. Her awareness reached outward, and she felt another power that might answer her call. Mipha waited in front of her, looking up at her with admiration—but not awe. It was that lack of awe, that knowledge of her essential personhood that slept beneath the roaring power of the goddess, that made her finally grasp why the Champions had been so important to her.

"Thank you, Mipha. For your gift… but more importantly, for talking to me. I needed to hear that."

Mipha bowed to her. "It is my pleasure."

Zelda rose up out of the darkness, buoyed by a swelling of the golden power that lifted her up, up into the waking world, and through the ringing of the bell and the roar of power she could hear blood pounding in her ears, and on her lips she bore a name.

* * *

She rose with a shout, calling a name that was not pronounceable by the tongues of the peoples of Hyrule, for whom the Gorons and the Gerudo and the Hylians and the Zora had only ever been able to produce approximations. She did not speak with her human tongue; it was the goddess's voice that thundered.

That shout was carried by a wave of the power; not so far that Ganon could hear it, but enough to be heard in the entire range surrounding Death Mountain.

The owner of the name heard it, and at once they answered: " _Hylia!_ " in a language that was not language, in a tongue that was older than the pacts that humans had made with the gods. " _Hylia!_ " they called again, in answer, because _their_ pact was older by far.

They twisted in the air, and the sky split, and they plunged through the rift rent wide in the blue.

* * *

Paya saw her charge, her princess, the incarnation of her goddess ( _and yes the woman you love why not add that on top of it it's not like that could make it worse now could it)_ crash into a stone on the side of the road. She saw how Zelda's hair was still aflame, her bandana knocked loose, as the impact broke her skull and her spine. She saw the world end.

 _Save her go to her hold her help her STOP THEM_

Paya's sword was alight with Hylia's blessing as she turned and struck, the motion practiced and fluid as her sword separated tendon and muscle from bone and a second Yiga fell, howling and clutching at their leg, to join the first.

The third was prepared for her; the sickle blade was already coming down and she slammed into the weapon with her shield, blowing wide the assassin's guard. This one she didn't even have to cut: she drove the hilt of her blade into their solar plexus, the blow sharp and sudden and _deep_ , and she heard the breath leave the Yiga before they fell to the ground, unmoving, their sickle sword clattering on the stone.

Laughter, then, and lights around her: five more Yiga, moving as the Yiga moved, announcing themselves as a sign of their impending victory. She did not reflect on their improper form, or their arrogance, or their deviation from what their Sheikah roots would have made a much more dangerous formation: she was not thinking very much at all. She moved automatically, as if dreaming, because she had shut the scream inside of her mind and it had taken up a chamber so large that she was not able to think without it. She would disable these men and women. She would kill them, if they made her. Then she would go to Zelda. And.

She was wondering how long she would be screaming when the tone of Zelda's power filled the world. Golden light suffused the air as the assassins appeared, blades and bows ready, but she paid them no mind and they likewise: every eye was turned to the princess as she rose from her place on the ground.

There was no blood on her head or in her hair; her hair was burning, but it seemed to burn with the light of the midday sun, as if the heat of Death Mountain did not touch it. Her eyes were clear, and half-lidded… and sad. Deeply, unbelievably sad, as she looked at the assassins gathered before her. No fear, no anger, no frustration, no pain. Only sadness.

"Your masters have told you that you are here to kill a girl," Zelda said in a voice that radiated from the stones and the air.

 _Do not move_ , Zelda spoke directly into Paya's mind, and Paya's entire body tensed in answer to the impossibility of the request. _Please. No matter what happens next, do not move._

One of the assassins, less paralyzed than their fellows, took aim with a Duplex Bow and released two arrows.

These arrows struck Zelda in the chest—and fell to the ground, their heads blunted. The princess neither looked at them nor reacted to the impact. Her armor, blessed by the great fairy, had protected her… hadn't it? The light roared around her, and Paya wondered if it was more than the armor at work.

"Only a girl," and the words might have been spoken by the world itself.

The air opened above Zelda, a disc of darkness rimmed in storm clouds widening like the spreading ripples in a pond, and from it spewed fire—and then the embodiment of fire arriving like an explosion. A serpent, head the size of a house and bearing a crown of horns that glowed with the enormity of the heat contained within them, plunged out of the rift, descending to the ground and taking its perch on the stones behind Zelda. The length of its body could have encircled every person there; the enormous claws at the end of its powerful arms could have easily crushed the boulders they were now latched around. It perched behind Zelda, as if framing her, framing the light of the world, and it lifted its head and its crimson eyes were larger than the people at which it stared. Paya knew this spirit from the stories her grandmother had told her, and she knew that its true name was for the gods but that her people called it _Dinraal_ , the great spirit of fire, guardian of the spring of power.

And Dinraal had come to Zelda as if it was _her_ guardian.

"Do you believe that?" Zelda's voice did not betray the sadness in her eyes; still, her tone was not challenging. She wanted their answer to this question; she wanted them to leave. "Do you believe that you raise your sword against a girl? A child? Do you believe that you can carry out your task?"

The Yiga, for all their worship of Ganon and all the evil that they meant for the world, were themselves only people: Paya could feel their fear radiating from them in waves, could smell how it soured their sweat, hear how each of them trembled. The dragon looked down at them in ready judgement, but it was not Dinraal who held them: it was Zelda, alight with the power of the goddess, who kept them arrested.

Paya believed they would flee: for a long, sweet moment, so long that she opened the chamber in her mind and found she was no longer screaming, she thought they would see reason and leave this place and tell the story of how Zelda had risen unharmed from their attack and called a dragon to her.

It was, in the end, only a moment.

One of the assassins, more zealous than the rest, gathered their courage and spoke through the mask that made their voice inhuman and strange: "For Kohga!" And that was all it took. Voices rose up to join theirs in chorus: "For Kohga!" The assassin whose face Paya had struck with her shield, and the one whose nerves she had hammered with the hilt of her sword, both rose up, Kohga's name in their mouths. Only the one whose tendons she had cut stayed on the ground though even they called out their leader's name: "For Kohga!"

"For Kohga!" they all cried out as one, and as one they moved to attack the princess. Some, holding their sickles in their hands, charged straight for her, feet beating a rhythm quicker than a bird's heartbeat. Others, holding their bows, made the signs by which they might move between spaces without being seen, seeking better vantage points by which to feather their target. As one, they sought to fulfill the wishes of their master.

As one they were answered by Dinraal; as one they were encompassed by the dragon's bugling roar, by the flashing of its eyes, the flexing of its power.

As one they were engulfed in flames; as one they burned, and burned, the heat of the fires so terrible that even at a space of ten meters and guarded against the effects of flame by the elixir, Paya still covered her face with her arms. Then the heat was gone, and she looked again.

As one the Yiga had disappeared; not even ashes were left behind.

Paya looked past them, to Zelda, and saw that her princess had never looked away, never turned her eyes from the fury that the dragon had unleashed on her behalf. Now that sadness was joined by pain. The two of them made eye contact, and Paya thought to call out to her—but then she realized Zelda was not looking at her. She was looking at the last of the Yiga, who lay on the ground, hands wrapped around their leg, quietly gasping in panic, and sickness, and fear.

* * *

 _Steel yourself. Take that pain and put it away, deep, deep down where you can come back to it later. Bury it, knowing that it will claw its way to the top again. They are dead. You did not kill them._

 _I called on Dinraal. As well to have put them to the torch with my own hands._

 _They made their choices and left you none. Yes, confront this, but not now._

The dragon lowered their massive head to her, and she reached out and ran her palm along their brow. She would have thought the touch burning, but like Naydraa, Dinraal betrayed expectations; they were _warm_ , fantastically and comfortingly warm, sending waves of well-being and calm up her arm and into her chest. The guardian spirits of Hyrule radiated serenity and wholeness, she thought, and for how well it masked her pain she thought she would never take her hand from the dragon's head.

"Thank you," she said, not in the tongue of the gods but in her own language.

" **You suffer** ," the dragon said, in the language that could not be reproduced by the tongue of the Hylians, which she only understood with the goddess's power and memory informing her awareness.

"I wish they had not died." She did not wish that Dinraal had not killed them; she would never gainsay their protection. She simply wished they had not arrived at this point; the dragon understood, still.

" **They were Malice**." That word, which she thought of as _Malice_ , did not translate perfectly into Hylian, and came bundled with hundreds of different textures: they were corrupted, of Ganon, spreading the hurt, against Hylia, authors of their own downfalls, on and on, perfectly precise in a way that made her own words seem almost crude in comparison.

"Even so. Thank you." She lifted her hand.

Dinraal lifted their head, and the wind rushed in to fill the gap as it moved. " **Call on us** ," they said, meaning all of their kind, at any time, from any place, " **Hylia**."

Without a tremor in the earth or a single stone broken loose did Dinraal rise, their body snaking through the air as if they were swimming. Fires plumed in the sky around them, and the wind roared, and somehow over the howling of the fires and the whirling air that sense of tranquility filled the world. She watched them for what was only a few seconds, but a few seconds was long enough. She turned back to Paya and the last of the Yiga, and she walked slowly and calmly down the trail. The power still enshrouded her, filling the world with a golden light more terrible than a dragon's, but one could hear the soles of her boots tapping against the stone as if she stood alone in an empty room.

Paya was not afraid of her. She surprised herself, that that was the first thing she had noticed: after calling on the dragon, after presiding over the elimination of the Yiga, after _rising from the dead_ , she had thought the other woman _would_ be afraid. Had she been hoping for that? Had she been hoping that seeing her as she was, according to what she could do, would change Paya's perspective of her? What cruel hope that would have been. What vain hope, too, because when their eyes met she saw only relief, and concern, and through the goddess's senses she felt that same radiating love (though not the same; it was changing, however slowly) that had guided the two of them to this point.

From the woman on the ground… well.

Paya bowed to her as she stepped closer. "Your Grace."

Zelda nodded to her, hoping the assassin saw the particular angle of her head, the implied difference in their elevation and status; now the two of them would put on a show. Each understood, without having spoken it aloud: this woman had to be shown a goddess and her handmaiden.

For woman it was; Zelda knew her, had known her from the moment Mipha had lifted her out of death.

"We have met before," she said, kneeling next to the Yiga. With golden hands she reached for the wounded woman's head, and though Paya was instantly at her side they both knew there was no threat; both hands were clasped tightly around the woman's leg, stymying the flow of blood, and she bore no weapon now. Gently, slowly, Zelda took hold of the Yiga mask, the inverted symbol of the eye of Hylia, and lifted it from the woman's face. "It had been some time since we met outside of Kakariko."

The assassin's lips were drawn back from her teeth in pain and panic, but she was still in the way people are still if they know their lives hang by a single, precious thread. There was a _desire_ to harm radiating from her, as sure and even as the heat of the air around them, but no _intent_ —the intent had been driven out of her.

The wound on her leg was bleeding, still; Paya had struck to disable, but without medical attention the assassin would surely bleed to death. Zelda could see that with her naked eye.

Mipha's power inside of her was cool, and calming, and empty. _It draws on my life force, Mipha said. It has been only minutes. Not enough to work with, yet_. But her life force was not her own, at least not solely. She was not limited in the same ways that another person, or even one of the Champions, might be. In her thoughts she reached out with the goddess's power, and Mipha's Grace was like a chalice that stood empty. The power was a molten light, running off her fingers like shining liquid gold, and because she knew it would work she channeled some part of that flow into the Grace.

The chalice was filled; the chalice ran over. Inside of herself, she felt Mipha gasp in surprise and something very like delight.

 _Considerably less than thirty hours_ , she allowed herself to think, and then she laid her hands on the wounded assassin's leg.

The woman gasped as if struck, and Paya was now next to her, kneeling on the side opposite Zelda, sword laid across her knees, staring into the killer's eyes. But the assassin had no sense that Paya was there: she stared at Zelda's face, eyes wide, and now tears began to flow.

Using Mipha's power was much like receiving it; cool, and calming, and putting balm to the hurts of the spirit. Was it the goddess's awareness that made it so easy? A century ago, Mipha had said she was helped by thinking of the people she loved; Zelda wondered if, leveraging only her own power and with her own will, she would need such thoughts, too. She did not, for now.

Zelda took her hands away, and the Yiga lifted hers too: the wound was closed, sinew and muscle joined once more to bone that was covered in whole, unmarked flesh. It was as if the wound had never been made at all. They two stared at it, while Paya's eyes were ever on the assassin's face.

Zelda let go of the golden power, and when she spoke again it was in her own voice. "I think you had better go."

"What?" The assassin—here she reflected she did not know the woman's name, did not want to, did not ever intend to—stared at her with shock and something like horror. "What do you mean?"

"Your Grace," Paya said, "that may be too kind. If this woman leaves here uninjured," because breaking her arms was a viable solution, "then she will attempt to kill you again. Failing that, she will only kill _herself_ , for having failed her master."

The object of their conversation did not confirm or even deny—she simply looked back and forth between her captors.

Zelda shook her head. "She will not. She cannot. Look at me." And the woman did as commanded. "Do you believe that you, as you are, can kill me, as I am?" How wrong it felt to say these things.

The assassin stared at Zelda, unblinking, and then looked at her own hands. At the closed wound on her leg. Her eyes wandered until they found her weapon on the ground some ten meters away, which made Paya shift her weight again. Finally, once more, she looked to Zelda. "No."

"Then you will not try again, I hope. More, you cannot die by your own hand. If you are still loyal, to Ganon and to your clan, then you must return to them and tell them what you have seen: that I am the caller of dragons, that I cannot be felled by arrow or blade or blows of force. If you were to take up your sword now and with it open my throat, the wound would close before my blood kissed the air. There is no blow so terrible, no cut so deep, that I would fall from it."

Silence. Then: "And if I am not loyal? If I betray my people, and the god we serve?"

"Then you would leave, and you would hide, and you would make sure that your fellows cannot find you. Perhaps you would submit yourself to the mercies of the Sheikah; I do not know. I cannot dictate your course for you, though I hope it is not one steeped in darkness. Still: you should go, and you should go now."

Silence once more. Zelda rose, and Paya with her, and the two of them stepped away from the assassin, to give her space (though Paya stayed between the other two). She stared at them, like a wary animal, and slowly rose to her feet. She licked her lips, looked down at her leg once more. Tested it, to make sure it was whole. And, once she was sure, she made signs with her hands. Orange light encircled her—and then she was gone, smoke marking the place where she had been standing a moment before.

The background noise of Death Mountain reigned again, the bubbling of lava and the hiss of the air. Zelda let out a breath she had not realized she'd been holding. Without the goddess's power, she was so much less sure of herself.

"That could have gone worse, I suppose—"

Paya's embrace was so sudden she didn't realize what was happening until the silver-haired woman had buried her face against Zelda's shoulder and dissolved into sobs that shook her entire body. In the removed, analytical part of her mind, Zelda recognized that the fact that Paya had gone so far as to physically touch her was a measure of the pain and fear and grief she had been feeling before; in the more immediate, responsive part, all she could do was return the embrace. Paya's legs were shaky, and instead of trying to hold her up Zelda just controlled their descent as they both sank to their knees. She stroked Paya's back, and her hair, not knowing what else to do.

"There, there. I'm sorry… I'm all right, I promise I'm all right… Paya, you're pinching my hair…"

"I-if I don't hold your hair against you, it's going to catch f-f-f-fire ag—" and that was about as far as she got before the words got away from her completely.

* * *

It passed, as one might expect.

For being caught in an attack that neither of them had foreseen from an enemy they had assumed incapacitated, each outwardly agreed to mutual blamelessness while quietly blaming themselves. Zelda rebound her hair underneath her climber's bandana, and Paya promised that she would trim the burnt ends once they were stopped for the evening.

Up the mountain they continued, eating up the kilometers to Goron City. There were monsters, and these they avoided or killed; there were animals, adapted to the harsh climate of Death Mountain, and these they catalogued (they would have hunted, but neither had the heart to make still more death with her hands); there was a Guardian, and this Zelda set to clearing the mountainside of monsters. The sounds of its weapons discharging behind them lent them a sense of security, as if it specifically had their backs. Perhaps it did. Perhaps Guardians, like dragons, knew the force that they served.

They came to Goron City, in time. They bore witness to the trials of Yunobo and participated in the repelling of Vah Rudania. Much, much happened, and will be outlined in its time.

For a moment—just for a moment—follow the Yiga woman, who fled on sure feet to the south and the west. Yiga training was not the same as that afforded to warriors of the Sheikah; in the many thousands of years since their split, they had differentiated themselves in key ways. The Sheikah produced better fighters, the Yiga better assassins. One way in which they had not drifted much, however, was in the essential and fundamental honing of their hearts and lungs. Warriors or messengers of the Yiga and Sheikah alike were trained so that they could run at speeds that would be a sprint for any other person, and they could sustain those speeds for a dozen hours or more. In this way, a determined messenger or killer of the Yiga clan might cross Hyrule more swiftly than a rider on a stout horse.

So, the killer ran. Zelda never learned her name, nor did Paya, but they knew her face, and Paya especially would have recognized the awe and fear in her expression as she left a wide berth around Hyrule Castle, truly a holy place where the holy rebirth was ongoing. No Yiga was allowed there, not since Kohga had made his pilgrimage; he had told his followers that their god was not given to fools and would seek out the faithful when the time came. So, she avoided it. And she listened to the sound of steel ringing from miles away, to a voice raised in song that made her heart pound in her chest, and she wondered at the color of the light that shone from the highest tower. And she _ran_.

For days she ran, pushing her body to utmost extremity; when Zelda called upon the fullness of the power of the goddess and Ganon screamed its vengeance from the heart of the kingdom, she was crossing the paths into the Gerudo Highlands. No Yiga approached from the road that lead into the desert; that place was for deployment, or intruders who wished to be feathered by Yiga arrows.

It was a testament to her strength that she made it at all; she had stopped to rest only very little and was not sure if she had slept. She was received by her sergeant, who began to ask her what had happened to the rest of her unit, and she responded with:

" _I must speak with Master Kohga_."

The conviction in her words carried the terror of what she'd seen; her sergeant looked at her in grim consideration, and nodded, and she was brought further into the fortress. That she had been delayed at all was a bad sign; possibly she would have been killed if she did not have important news. That did not matter now, though.

All Yiga of rank were allowed to roam the fortress freely; it was only Master Kohga's personal chambers that one needed special permission to enter. She kneeled outside of her master's doorway, assuming the full obeisance. A curtain of beads separated his room from the hallway, but a pall of darkness clung to those beads, making them as opaque as ink, or smoke, or the Malice.

"Master Kohga," she said, and in spite of her exhaustion and her terror and the weight of the visions she carried in her memory her voice did not tremble. "I come bearing news that I must share with you."

"News?" Kohga's voice from inside of the room was high, almost relaxed, and conveyed that he would have preferred to use many more words but often restrained himself. "Where have you been, disciple?"

"My master, I have just returned from Death Mountain. I am the last survivor of the band that sought to spill the Princess of Hyrule's blood on the southern slopes."

Silence; more than silence; being near to Master Kohga made it possible to feel his moods, as if he could convey them through the air like the smell of incense. The tension weighed on her like a smothering blanket, pressing her down harder onto the floor, and she wondered in a very distracted way what would happen if she passed out from exhaustion and stress.

"Enter," he said.

She rose to her feet, bowed formally once more to the closed door, and took the beads in her hands. They were heavier than they looked, crackling with black and purple energies that stuck to her fingers like oil from fatty meat, and they resisted as she pulled them aside, as if trying to retain their current arrangement.

Pull them aside she did, and she bowed her head as she entered Kohga's chambers.

The room was full of Malice, as it had been for years; great golden eyes turned to examine her as she entered, staring unblinking; the walls were occasionally dotted by lipless mouths attached to no throats, that opened and closed and hummed in a language that she did not understand. The light in the room was the light of the Malice itself, dark purple from the otherworldly fires and gold from the staring eyes. Kohga's bed was untouched; the mat on which he kneeled was untouched; the path from mat to doorway was untouched. Everything else was enrobed in inky darkness.

Kohga faced away from her, kneeling in contemplation of a design on the wall that connected to the ritual grounds outside, and she could not look at that design because the shape it made hurt her eyes. Instead she looked at the head of the Yiga: he was not a tall man, but no one would ever gainsay his strength of presence. He rose slowly, placing his right hand on his right knee to push himself into a standing position. Her first instinct was to go to him and help him to his feet; she thought better of it, though, knowing how sacred his mat was considered. There was no fat on him, though there was something else, and when he got to his feet the lean musculature of his back writhed as if something under his skin desperately wished to push into the open air. A faint vapor emanated from his sleeves and his collar. Standing in that room with him, she wondered how she might ever lose faith; she wondered how the servants of the liar goddess could ever think such a thing possible. Here was power personified.

He turned to look at her, and for the first time in years she was face-to-face with Kohga, leader of the Yiga, keeper of the last secrets, bearer of the mark of Ganon's favor. Light shone from beneath the pearlescent whiteness of his mask.

"Tell me what you saw."

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE_** : Originally, the sequence at the end was worded more ambiguously: it wasn't clear whether or not Kohga still had his pudgy stomach. At the behest of my One Reader, I removed that ambiguity; I hope this better communicates how different Kohga is, and sets the tone for how differently we'll be dealing with the Yiga in the future.

This chapter ended up having a lot more happening in it than I initially thought it would; it felt busy when I wrote it, but I hope you don't find the pacing unpleasant. If you have any particular places where you feel it could be improved, please let me know.

Thank you, as ever, for reading.


	22. Fathers and Children

To walk on Death Mountain was to walk on the beating heart of the world, to feel the pulsing flow of the molten stone that was its blood. The world breathed, the world _lived_ , and Death Mountain trembled. The mountain shifted, changed, opening and closing new faces with geological slowness, on a scale that the little lives lived in sight of its sloped could not begin to see.

Goron City gave the impression of being part of the mountain, not dug out of it but born _of_ it. An observer or a painter might imagine the birth of that landscape: the mountainside splitting open as lava kissed the open air, red and orange light shining up between the pillars of dark stone. The Gorons, of stone themselves, might have come upon the city that way—or perhaps they were even born with it, issued forth by the mountain in the forgotten era when gods and demons walked the world together. With iron bridges they connected the stone outcroppings, creating a network of pathways that allowed them to walk the spaces above the flowing blood of the world. Goron City's age was impossible to guess at: all its artificial parts, the bridges and the gates and even the houses, were periodically replaced, but if the mountain shifted beneath them then it happened so slowly that none could tell.

Life went on in that place, heedless of age or antiquity or the insistent reality of the burning fires that built beneath it and threatened, of late, to rise to the surface. Artisans worked their repairs on iron and stone, children rolled aimlessly and fearlessly along the narrow paths of the city that hung just over fatal drops into burning fire, and those few of the other peoples of Hyrule who paid visit during this season of burning moved quickly between buildings, seeking specific goods or specific places.

The Ripped & Shredded was the armor shop of Goron City; it sold armor made specifically for Hylians, since Hylians were the people most likely to travel to Goron City. The armor sold there was of unquestionable utility but lacked longevity: it could protect Hylians from the terrible burning heat of the mountain, and its construction meant that it would never need to be replaced, but any Hylian that left the mountain would find they no longer needed those precious armor pieces. This reality had not driven down its price, as the two women stalking out of the shop had just learned.

"I cannot _believe_ they charge two _thousand_ rupees for that helmet. Even if it is fire-resistant! That's as much as _two_ sets of the boots _and_ one of the armor."

The Flamebreaker armor and matching boots made heavy, almost riotous noise as Zelda walked across one of the iron bridges, now headed toward the town's inn. It would take a very great deal of effort to move quietly in them; still, she'd never felt quite so comfortable as she did right now, temperature-wise. A psychological effect, perhaps, of knowing that she was materially safe in a way that even the fireproof elixirs would not have been able to provide for her. Yes, the boots had been an excellent purchase. Despite that, she had to admit her mood was completely shot.

"The craftsmanship on it must be quite meticulous. And, Zelda, we _could_ purchase it, if you wanted to."

"I know, I know… but it would deplete nearly all of our rupees. I'd sooner get you a matching pair of boots and armor, too."

Zelda did not see as Paya winced and wrestled for an argument that would not betray how hideous she found the armor in question. "Cotera mentioned that, if we should find her sisters, then their magic might draw further benefits out of full sets."

"She _did_ , that's true. Still. How irritating! For now, let's see if we can secure a room at the inn, and then we will consider what else to do. If nothing else, it will give us an opportunity to prepare more fireproof elixirs. Oh, I hope we can increase their potency without losing too large a portion of their window of efficacy. Some areas of Death Mountain are too hot for the elixirs we've made, the shop keep said. I suppose, in the worst-case scenario, we could both use one of our elixirs _and_ one of the armor pieces…"

"I'm sure it won't come to that."

Zelda was doing the math in her head as they walked, weighing the long-term benefits of the helmet against its cost, trying to determine if it came out properly against how long they planned to spend on Death Mountain (and how likely it was that Ganon's Blight, which waited on Vah Rudania, would be using fire as a weapon). If they could gain the same benefit from producing better elixirs, using more effective parts, then perhaps… and so it went, round and round in her head, so that she barely noticed at all as they passed by a Gerudo woman on the near the inn.

"Good afternoon," the woman said in her own tongue: _sav'saaba_.

"Good afternoon," Zelda replied, also in Gerudo.

Then she stopped in her tracks and went back over the words in her head. _Wait. What_? She turned to look back at the woman, who was looking at her with an expression nearly as surprised as Paya's.

"You speak Gerudo, little sister?" The (much, _much_ ) taller woman's building excitement showed in her grin, the sudden nervous shifting of her weight, back and forth between one foot and the other.

"A… small amount?" Only it didn't come out like a question, she realized: her tone, in Hylian, would have made it into a question that communicated her surprise, but in the Gerudo language that same tone didn't carry a similar meaning, and she had failed to append the interrogative particle. Well. Keep that in mind for the next time she decided to open her mouth.

"A small amount can be _vast_ in a sea of Hylian! It feels so good to be able to speak my own language again—I have not met any other Gerudo since coming up this accursed mountain. And who could blame them for not scaling it, with this heat? I have to slather myself with these disgusting tinctures constantly or else end up burning to a cinder, and the Gorons don't make armor to fit Gerudo! Every day here is a misery, and I wish I could force myself to leave. Ah, but I am being rude. My name is Ramella."

"My name is Zelda."

"Zelda! You have a good name, Zelda. A name that signifies strength of heart. And your pronunciation is so good! You are not dropping your 'v's at all. You must have spent a very long time working on that."

Throughout this exchange Paya's eyes had grown steadily wider, and she had stopped turning her head to look between the two speakers; now only her eyes darted back and forth.

Zelda spent a heartbeat considering her response, trying to make it as true as possible: "I do not remember feeling like I was working." She was aware of how formally she was constructing her sentences, one of the sure signs of it being a second language, but she didn't really know how to speak in any other way. That marked the limit of her fluency, she supposed.

Ramella barked a laugh, full and deep and throaty, and something in that laugh made Zelda feel wistful. "Yes, I suppose Gerudo Town does have many attractions for a young woman, even if she isn't old enough to drink. Ah, I should go home. I should go home! I miss my sister and her idiot friends in the guard. Sadly, I can't leave yet."

"Why can't you leave?"

Now Ramella looked away from Zelda, up to Death Mountain, and scowled. "Gemstones. I'm here to gather gemstones and bring them back to Gerudo Town. There's always a premium to be paid in the city, and if I can get the stones here then I'll make a killing when I go home. But if I return without them, I will be financially ruined, and my family will suffer for it. So, I can't leave yet. I may be trapped here so long as that," and here she used a word that Zelda did not know but it was easy to guess from her tone that it was very rude, "Divine Beast keeps driving the Gorons from their mines."

"I have gemstones!" The color rose in her face as soon as she said it; she was speaking like an eager child, happier to immediately address someone's sorrows than that she had anything significant to add. _Why would having a child's mastery of the language shape my reactions that way?_ Her embarrassment might have ended the conversation, forced her to carry on in Hylian so she could be surer of her words, but when she said that Ramella's eyes turned back to her and now they were measuring.

"Do you have rubies, sister?" She had dropped the affectionate honorific, choosing to address Zelda in the mode of a potential business partner rather than a favored child. "I can only buy them in sets of ten, and right now I am looking specifically for rubies."

"I have rubies," and now she was doing math in her head again. She had more than ten, though not _many_ more. Normally it took Gorons mining to be able to unearth them, but she'd found rich mineral deposits several times in the past weeks and discovered that one could excavate them with the application of explosives.

"Excellent. If you would let me have them, I would gladly give you twenty-three hundred… no, twenty- _four_ hundred rupees, because you have made my day much better. That's nearly a fifteen percent mark-up compared to what you would get at the general store or the armor shop. What do you say?"

Perhaps it was the intersection of her insecurity in her language skills and Ramella's warm tone that worked so well on her; later she would wonder if the woman had taken advantage of her own inexperience, and then feel ashamed for entertaining the thought. In the moment, she thought only of how lucky she was to have her prayers so specifically answered within her means. "Yes, please."

The exchange after that was quick; Zelda retrieved the rubies from where she kept them in her pack, counting them out into a sack which she gave to Ramella. Ramella, in turn, handed over eight golden rupees, their sheen dazzling even in the cinder-filled air of Goron City.

"Thank you, little sister. You have eased my troubles considerably. If you ever have more gemstones and are looking to trade, come to me, and I will be sure to give you a good deal. Farewell."

"Farewell," Zelda replied, the one part of the exchange where they spoke with the same level of formality, raising her hand. Ramella flashed her a grin and walked on, toward the chief's house; she did not get very far before she began audibly complaining about the heat.

After Ramella was out of range, Paya apparently couldn't hold it back any longer: "I had no idea you could speak Gerudo!"

"I didn't either. Interesting that I still know how, with my amnesia. I suppose that makes sense, since language apparently isn't lost… Still. When do you suppose I learned it?"

"I wouldn't hazard a guess. It is said that your mother often visited the Gerudo, ever since she was a girl, but I don't know whether you were brought on those trips with her." She didn't speak the question that they could both feel in the air: what else did Zelda know, and not remember that she knew?

Well. That was for another time. Instead of posing another question, Zelda hoisted the sack of rupees she'd just been given, shaking it so that they clashed musically together. She couldn't help grinning; she couldn't help being just a little proud of herself. "What say we go pick up that helmet? And perhaps a second pair of boots, while we're at it."

Paya did not look happy; in fact, she was grimacing. She must have been thinking about something else.

* * *

Bludo was feeling very old.

All right! All right, "feeling" wasn't exactly it. Bludo _was_ old. That was just a fact. But he was feeling that fact as sharply as he'd ever felt it before, in the grinding of his bones when he did so much as … turn his head? Lift his arms? Think strenuous thoughts? He spent a moment trying to imagine something that _wouldn't_ hurt his back, and that made the muscles at the base of his spine seize up so hard he drove his fist into them, grinding his knuckles as deep as he could. The worst of the pain was beneath the stone outcropping on his back, and it had been decades since he'd been spry enough to be able to reach _that_ deep. Right now, he just had to deal with it. As much as he could.

"Boss of the Gorons. Ugh." He was glad there was no one around to hear him, just outside of his house; that Gerudo had been full of questions—when were the mines going to open back up, when would Rudania come back around, would this heat ever ease off at all—and seeing her leave had been one of the quiet reliefs he allowed himself to experience. Being "Boss" just meant people liked to come to him with their complaints and ask questions to which there were no answers, and the tourists weren't the worst of it by far. His day had started with a meeting with the miner's union, and if that concept hadn't been bad enough on its own they'd actually come bearing worse news than discontent with the effects of his leadership: the Southern Mine was going to run dry, soon. Not this year, but in the next couple. Setting up new mining operations in the Northern Mine would require routing all of the monsters in it, though thankfully the Lizalfos hadn't damaged any of the equipment there. Worse, getting the Northern Mine running would only be a stopgap measure itself; the real goal was Death Mountain, where Rudania _had_ destroyed most of their infrastructure.

So Bludo knew what no one else did: Goron City was running out of rupees. Maybe some people suspected, Hylia knew enough of the miners were out of work, but he was the only one who had a decent idea about when the city would go broke. He could delay it by a few years if they managed to reclaim the Northern Mine, and it's not like anyone was going to _starve_ , but not being able to mine Death Mountain was going to start having much worse effects, soon. Once the Gerudo and the Zora were no longer getting shipments of good Goron iron, then there would be a _real_ problem.

As if demanding that he stop thinking about this, a white-hot lance of pain ran up his spine and burst directly into his skull. He punched himself in the back, holding his fist there, and the pressure relieved the pain for a few moments. He needed his medicine.

"Where is that kid? Knew I shouldn't've sent him on his own. Probably off with his head in the clouds somewhere…"

That wasn't fair, Bludo knew. Yunobo was a good kid, and his heart was in the right place, even if he was… _soft_. But he just didn't have the grit he should have, by now. One of Lord Daruk's own, Yunobo should have been the very image of the proper Goron, all strength and courage, but he didn't have those things. He _pretended_ he did, and it was enough for most of the people around him, but Bludo's doubts about him had been growing more and more pronounced for ages. The kid's abilities were essential in driving off Rudania, for sure, but they'd need a lot more than a fancy shield if they were going to address that problem more permanently.

Thinking of this and nursing his aching back, Bludo did not see the two Hylians until they were right in front of him. He tried not to start, but failed at least a little; did _everyone_ have to sneak up on him today?

"Hello," one started, their voice high and soft. They were wearing the full Flamebreaker set; that would be a very nice cash infusion, then. The other was wearing Sheikah garb, and probably a fireproof elixir.

"Greetings. Name's Bludo. I'm the Boss Goron, though I'm guessing you already know that if you're up here. What can I do for you, brothers?"

The two Hylians looked at each other, blinked, and he wasn't sure if they said anything because his hearing had started to go but he was pretty sure they communicated _something_. Then the one in the Flamebreaker outfit looked at him again and said, gently, "'Sisters,' actually."

"Oh. Sorry. My mistake, won't happen again." Yunobo would have handled that better, he admitted to himself: the kid was a lot better at really _seeing_ people. And how many of the guards had they had to correct on their way here? He didn't want to think about it. "Well, if you'll forgive me that, what can I do for you? What's brought you to Goron City?"

The one in the Flamebreaker armor was plainly the leader between the two of them. That she was traveling with a Sheikah escort suggested interesting possibilities, but he didn't want to guess at them… until she continued. "We're actually here on an errand concerning the Divine Beast. Would you mind telling us about it?"

"That scorching, pain-in-my-back nuisance? Not a lot to tell, except for how much trouble it's been causing us. Stupid thing's been sitting quiet on Death Mountain ever since Lord Daruk died, and it's not until the past while that it's really decided to jump up and make problems for everyone. It keeps Death Mountain constantly agitated; do you know Goron City used to be temperate enough that Hylians and Gerudo would need to wear jackets in the winter months? Now the temperature's so high you can't keep from bursting into flames without dousing yourself in lizard guts. It keeps making incursions toward Goron City, and if we're _lucky_ it tries to show up on its own and we can drive it back with our cannons and Yunobo's big head. If we're _not_ lucky it'll send out its drones, and… well, I don't want to talk about that right now. In short, it's a pest the size of a mountain!"

The two women, no doubt duly impressed by this fountain of information, exchanged glances again. They sure did like looking at each other a lot. Hylians seemed to like to do that, in his experience, always looking around instead of looking you in the eye. Not their fault, probably, but still.

"You mentioned someone named Yunobo helping to drive off Vah Rudania?"

"Did I? I guess I did. Yunobo's Lord Daruk's descendant—he even inherited Daruk's Protection, though it seems like that's _all_ he inherited, sometimes. Whenever Rudania comes down from the mountain we'll use the cannons to drive it off, but I wonder how long we can keep it up. Eventually I'm going to give out, or Yunobo is, and… look, I'm sorry, you don't need to hear all this."

"No! No, not at all. We're actually here specifically about Vah Rudania in the sense that we want to restore it to its original function."

All right. OK. Now it was _his_ turn to stare. A Hylian and a Sheikah showing up from out of nowhere wanting to address a problem that the Gorons couldn't handle for themselves? He didn't know whether to be intrigued or insulted. He tended toward insulted, which was fair given that he was _pretty sure_ he had insulted them in turn, earlier. Maybe that made them even. But how'd they even get this idea into their heads at all?

"You intend to… _restore_ it. What, are you going to try to replace Daruk? Or are you just looking to work with his blessing?" It hurt him physically to do so, but he turned away from them to look up at the mountainside where the faces of Goron City's heroic ancestors were carved, and Daruk's face was the newest of those. "Do you think he's still watching out for us, or what?"

Her eyes must have followed his. "Is that Lord Daruk?"

"Yeah, that's him. We memorialized him after the Calamity, given how he went down fighting. Vah Rudania's hard for us to look at, much less deal with. Not a lot of us still remember him, but I tell you, when he was around, nothing like this—"

There was a sound from behind him, the chiming of a bell, and then a golden light brighter than the glow of Death Mountain's blood. He did not notice the pain in his back as he turned again, looking to the woman in the Flamebreaker armor, to the golden light that was pouring out of her helmet.

* * *

Hyrule Castle looked different in the light of the setting sun; from the south, seen through the trees in the glade where Zelda had finished receiving the vows of the Champions, the darkening sky made the castle itself seem almost sleepy. The roughness of its edges, the solidity of its authority, each of these were softened as day turned to night. When night fell, and the castle became a silhouette of darkness against the brilliance of the night sky, its black outline broken by torches and candles set in windows, the impression would fade; but now, in that twilight, Zelda could look at the place she had called home for so long and think of it as something else. Something inviting, though distant; something that promised rest, rather than a compounding of her burdens. Of her failures.

She sighed. Maintaining those thoughts would be easier if she wasn't so morose.

After the ceremony and the swearing of their quiet oaths, Zelda had not been able to speak much to the Champions. Urbosa had seen it; Urbosa, ever privy to the secrets of her moods however much Zelda might want to hide them, had steered and commandeered the conversation that came after for the better part of an hour. She was an old hand at it, Zelda supposed; an accomplished stateswoman as much as a warrior. Urbosa had been the one to suggest the other Champions return to the castle, and Revali and Mipha had agreed with her and left; the only one unmoved by her, though Zelda could not have guessed why, was Daruk. Daruk and Urbosa had an exchange that Zelda wasn't sure she had caught the subtleties of:

"Aren't you tired yet, old man?"

"Ah, you know. I'll follow along in a minute, just need to clear my head, arrange my thoughts."

And Urbosa had left, taking Mipha and Revali with her, and Daruk had stayed behind. Link had stayed behind, too, and something in that made her chest ache; when he had sworn his oath to her, she thought that he was revealing something, some deeper part of his thoughts… but, really, she was just trying to run from her doubts, wasn't she? Now he was withdrawn again, never looking directly at her, gaze turned always outward. If she'd asked, he surely would have said that it was to watch the environment for threats, and maybe that was even true, but she could feel his scorn for her failures.

She took a seat on the edge of the fountain, breathing in slowly. The day had been long—longer than any day she could remember, of late—and it seemed like it was refusing to end, even with the sun surrendering to night. She could not be calm, not really. The weight in her mind wouldn't let her, kept her thoughts buzzing. Would she sleep tonight, she wondered?

"How are you doing, tiny prin—err, Princess?"

Daruk walked _remarkably_ quietly for someone his size, but it was probably a bigger testament to how self-absorbed she was being that he surprised her. Still, she didn't let it show, and looked up at him before answering. Dusk made Daruk's ruddy coloring seem even more so, until he bore more than a passing resemblance to Death Mountain itself. If not for his huge, watchful eyes and the wide down-turn of his mouth, the illusion would have been almost perfect.

"I am… fatigued, Lord Daruk. Though it shames me to say, I have found the day more draining than I anticipated. I will be ready to travel back to the castle momentarily, however; you need not wait for me." _I already have all the guard I can stand_.

"Well, see, that's just the thing." Now Daruk wasn't making eye contact with her, and his hands—either easily as large as her torso—were brought together, each picking at the fingers of the other hand. Was he _nervous_? She'd never seen him nervous. She wasn't aware he could even _be_ nervous. "Now that the other Champions have taken off, and you've got a moment to yourself outside of the castle, I was hoping we could have a word?"

It was true that they had not had time to speak in private since the day she had asked him to join the Champions and celebrated by eating a rock. What could he want to talk about, though, especially something that would make him this nervous? Was there some weakness her saw in her that he thought he might be able to correct through conversation ( _oh, how Father would be delighted if it were that easy_ )? Had she offended him somehow? Was there some yet more earnest oath he wanted to make to her, about his loyalty to the cause, to her, and to the war with Ganon? If the last she thought she might scream, or else collapse into herself and cease to exist.

"Of course. Link," and the Hero's eyes were on her instantly, "would you mind giving Lord Daruk and I a bit of privacy, for a moment?"

Something she didn't understand transpired, then; Link nodded to her, acquiescing to her request and to her authority, but then he locked eyes with Daruk. Zelda could not glance between the two of them, for propriety's sake, but she saw something communicated in a very small, subtle inclination of Link's head—and then he moved away, just far enough to be out of earshot. What had _that_ been about? Did Daruk and Link know each other? If so, what had passed between them, then? What confidence that the Champions could share between themselves but not with her?

This line of thinking was interrupted by the sound of stone grinding on stone as Daruk took his own seat on the edge of the fountain, found it entirely too narrow, and then sat on the ground, instead. Even seated he was a great deal taller than she would have been when standing, and the respectful distance he left between the two of them was respectful on _his_ scale, which meant that she could not have reached out and touched him unless she had a very long stick.

"Do you remember the day you asked me to be Champion? When I said how, with the monsters and all, you should have an escort of Gorons following you around?" For all his fear of dogs, Daruk's eyes were rather like a puppy's; in response to him she could only nod. "You told me I sounded like your father. Been thinking about that ever since you said it."

She went through and examined possibilities of meaning: had that been too intimate a thing to say? Had she committed a kind of faux pas, impugning on the institution of fatherhood as it was viewed by the Gorons? The possibilities seemed limitless, and she cursed her prior self for being so reflexively honest with what should have been a secret thought.

"I wanted to apologize to you," Lord Daruk said, which snapped her back to reality like a splash of water in the face. "I'm… boisterous. It's considered a good thing for the Big Brother of the Gorons to talk up his people, you know? When I said that, it was supposed to be about how strong we Gorons are. But it wasn't. It ended up about you. So. I'm sorry for that. And what made me realize that was you comparing me to your father. I don't want to be the kind of person who makes you feel that way."

That was mystifying. Who wouldn't want to be compared to the king? "Why ever not?"

He frowned at her, as if she was asking a question that she already knew the answer to. "Because, tiny princess." He seemed to catch that she _didn't_ know what he meant, and his frown deepened. "I see. Yeah, fine. His Highness is an _all right_ regent, but he's a _bad_ father."

The clearing was quiet; the fireflies had only just come out to dance, and the singing of the birds had faded but the night's insects had not started their song. In the fading light she stared up at Daruk, and it took a concerted effort to keep the surprise from her face. Was that… treason? It wasn't treason. Hyrule wasn't that sort of kingdom. It probably wasn't even a crime, except one of decorum, but it was _such_ a breaking with decorum that she didn't have the context by which to process it, a least not immediately. It was like somebody had set off a Sheikah flash bomb inside of her skull; like the temporary whiteness left on one's vision by watching a Guardian's weapon discharged, only instead of a corner of her eye this whiteness had swallowed up her thoughts.

"My father," she said slowly, carefully, trying not to sound defensive, "does as well as any man could."

"Hmph." Dismissive, now, almost angry. "On Death Mountain we say that the queens of Hyrule are the light of their people, but the kings have always been a bit dim." He sighed, running his hand over his face. "Sorry. It's gotta be hard to hear that. But I think you _need_ to hear it. Nobody's ever criticized your father in front of you, right?" She shook her head. "Course they haven't. Why would they? He's their king. But you need to hear this from someone, and it looks like it has to be me. Link would sooner cut his own tongue out than speak ill of anyone in your house, Revali wouldn't be able to see this unless you rubbed his beak in it, Mipha's another princess but she has a good relationship with her dad and probably doesn't even think to relate about this, and Urbosa…" He sucked air between his teeth. "Urbosa's heart is in the right place but she hates your old man's guts so bad I don't think she could string together two words about him without setting something on fire."

" _Lady Urbosa hates my father_?" She didn't realize how loudly she was speaking until the words were out; she clapped one hand over her mouth, looking to see if Link had heard, but of course the hero gave no sign.

"Well, that's for her to talk about, not me. Ah, I'm running my mouth again. Look. Maybe you don't see it, but _I_ do. Nobody knows the weaknesses in a father like other fathers."

Daruk _was_ a father, she reflected; she didn't know how many sons he had, but she knew that it was more than one and that he was well-known as a model of Goron fatherhood. _Goron_. "It may be that my father doesn't—can't—adhere to the same standard that you do." Why was she defending him, even obliquely? The possibility that Daruk was offering her, that maybe not every part of the rift between her father and her was her own fault, would be like a balm to the wounds of her spirit. But then, maybe that _was_ why. Maybe the only reason she found it so appealing was that it would be so easy to obviate responsibility, to pretend that some of this blame could be heaped on her father, too. But why stop there? Why not blame him for her _other_ failures? Is that where it would end, externalizing all her weaknesses and blaming another for it? She wouldn't do that. She couldn't. "I won't deny that there is… tension… between the two of us. I would if I could, but no doubt you've seen it, observant as you are. But that tension is because he is the king, and I am the princess, and I have yet to fulfil my sacred duty to my people. It's—"

"How old are you?" No anger in those words; no fatigue; no resignation; only a kind of gentle surety.

"Sixteen."

"Sixteen," he repeated, running his hand over his face again. "By the mountain, you're a _kid_. A _child_."

Color rose in her face, and with that heat came anger. "If you mean to talk down to me…"

"Zelda, in a year you'll be considered an adult. You'll inherit your mother's spot as monarch, and no doubt your old man's tune will change when you come to power, one way or another. But right now, and every year leading up to now? You might be a princess, with all these responsibilities nobody else has, the threat of Ganon looming over you and the whole kingdom and all this other garbage… but you're a _child_. You're _his_ child. And." Again, hand over face. "I'm doing this wrong. I'm bad with words and I keep trying to use them and I'm doing this wrong." He sighed, heavily, and turned on the ground to face her, though he did not rise. "Look. When my sons try something they can't do, and they fail, even if I _really want them to succeed_ , that doesn't describe our whole relationship. I might scold them for it if I think they behave badly, but failure isn't enough reason to," and instead of describing whatever it was he waved his hands about in the air, as if to take in the entire world, or at least the entire context surrounding the conversation. "You have to love your kids first. Protect them. Take care of them. _Lie_ to them, if you have to, even if neither of you believe it, because being a father means making sure they're OK. Nothing else really matters."

He meant for all of this to… she wasn't sure, actually. Almost certainly not for it to have opened this icy pit in her stomach, to have let her anger and her fatigue and her hopes drain out until she was just cold. What could he understand about her, or her father, or anything between them? He didn't know Zelda; he didn't know King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule.

"I would thank you to say whatever you feel you must say, Lord Daruk."

"It… OK, Princess, just this. It's not your fault. You deserve to be happy. And you deserve a father who will help you be happy, not a king who treats you as his subject."

She was impressed by how even she could keep her voice. "I believe you have overstepped your bounds."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have." Why wasn't he angry? He wasn't angry, or ashamed, or even frustrated. He just sounded sad. He got to his feet, dusting his knees off with his hands, combing his beard with his fingers. "It's your life, tiny princess. You're not my kid, and it's wrong of me to act like you are. I hope I didn't hurt our friendship, saying all this; I hope you can forgive me." He set his fists on his hips, but she found she couldn't look at him anymore. "But even if I did, even if you never talk to me again outside of my duties as a Champion, I hope you remember this: next time your father makes you feel small, I want you to think of the things that make you feel as tall as a mountain. And if things ever get to be too much… you can come to Goron City. Bring the little guy. The two of you can stay at old Daruk's house, and I'll make sure the world stays out for a little while."

He had nothing else; no farewells, no last thoughts. He nodded to her, confirmed that the Boulder Breaker was still tied to his back, turned away, and began the walk toward the castle. Now that she was paying attention, his footsteps were heavy, shaking the ground beneath him.

Her hands were shaking. How many days had it been since her father had spoken to her? How many years, since he had looked at her without that same resignation, that disappointment, darkening his eyes? Could she even remember a time when her failures hadn't been a pall over their entire lives? Had there _never_ been a time, and her memories of her mother were just some kind of psychic mechanism meant to bolster her, so she wouldn't be crushed under the weight of the world?

 _It's not your fault_.

She clamped both of her hands over her mouth and leaned over, tried to keep from shaking, failed.

 _You deserve to be happy_.

She hoped that Link would stay away for just a little longer.

* * *

Paya's attentions were divided between Bludo and Zelda. The old Goron's expression when Zelda's power had begun to shine—blessedly contained by her armor this time, so it wasn't visible to the entire city and didn't have every Goron on the mountain gathering—had been shocked at first, but after a few seconds he had shifted over to quiet and analytical and watchful. That shift, his lack of surprise or fear, spoke a lot about him; there were few men in the world that Paya would have wanted to sit down and talk to, but Bludo would have been one of them. She couldn't read Gorons as well as she could read Hylians, or other Sheikah, but there was something there… not memory, but knowledge.

The light faded along with the chiming of Hylia's power, and Zelda's posture relaxed into something closer to her natural one. She reached up reflexively, to feel at her eyes, found her fingers blocked by the helmet she was wearing. Paya thought she would take her helmet off, but she didn't.

"Zelda," she said, trying to keep her voice low enough that the elder Goron would not overhear, "are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Zelda said, though she was still trying to get complete control of her breathing back. "We'll talk about it—about Daruk—later. Please." But they _would_ talk; that was a relief. Zelda was not as forthcoming with some memories as with others, so it was always a relief to hear that there was one she wanted to talk about.

"You two." Bludo's voice was like gravel being ground underneath the wheels of a heavy wagon, but his tone was gently respectful—not reverent, but respectful. "If you want to help with Rudania, then you're going to need to go find Yunobo. He'll be at the Northern Mine, getting the medicine I need for my back. Would you do me the favor of going and bringing him back? Who knows what kind of trouble he's gotten himself into. We can get started when you're back."

"Thank you, Bludo." It was impossible to see her face beneath the helmet, as she was looking away, but Paya could hear in Zelda's voice that she was smiling. "We will return with Yunobo, then, and discuss our course of action."

The two of them left together, inclining their heads in appreciation to the Goron Elder, and proceeded up the winding path to the north.

They did not realize, at the time, that they should have been running; they knew the task was urgent, but the fullness of that urgency wasn't known to them yet.

* * *

Gorons liked to pretend that they did not know fear, especially when talking to the other peoples of Hyrule. All grit and gravel, that was the Gorons. Walk through lava, dig through stone, mine for diamonds, sleep like rocks, that was the Gorons. What did they have to be afraid of? They _were_ the mountain, and the mountain wasn't afraid of anything.

Yunobo knew better. Yunobo knew fear.

Fear was the sight of Vah Rudania walking around the mountain, its giant head swiveling, knowing that any given pass could be the one where it decided to come down to Goron City and stomp everything flat.

Fear was knowing that you had inherited Daruk's Protection, and that that meant you were the only person who could possibly drive Rudania away (and not directly, either—or, well, extremely directly, depending on your perspective).

Fear was knowing that your ancestor's bravery and the power you'd inherited made people think you were _basically_ like that ancestor made all over again. Then they'd build their sense of security around you. Depend on you. You, who didn't have much of an appetite, and couldn't stop being scrawny. You, who'd be just as happy leaving the mountain and living in a nice cave somewhere in the low lands. You, who shook like an earthquake every time you thought about what would happen if this was the time Daruk's Protection broke, if the strain you felt on the impact against Rudania's head finally told and the barrier shattered like glass and then _you'd_ shatter, too. Then where would you be? Then where would everyone _else_ be?

And, more immediately, fear was the sound of Lizalfos tongues flicking out into the air, tasting at the heat, trying to detect your hiding spot. Fear was the two-pronged swords they carried, and the wicked curves of their teeth.

"Oh, man. Oh, _man…_ "

He could probably make it back to Drak if he really ran. Like, all-out, just roll for it, he'd probably outpace them by enough that he would make it. But what was Drak going to do? Fight against six (or man were there _seven_ now?) fire Lizalfos when Yunobo couldn't? Go and get the medicine by himself? No. No, running would just get Drak killed.

 _Not running is going to get_ me _killed._

That thought was like molten steel flowing down the crevices of his brain. Why wouldn't his hands stop shaking? He clenched his fists as hard as he could but they kept shaking, if they didn't stop then the Lizalfos were going to _hear_ , and…

"Come on, Yunobo. Get a hold of yourself. You're going to be OK. You're going to be OK. You."

A gust of wind blew, so heavy that it jostled his right arm. Huh. That must be a strong wind. He tried to shift it back, but it wouldn't move.

He turned his head.

The eye of the Lizalfos stared right back at him. Its jaw was clamped around his forearm, its needle-like teeth drawing blood through his skin, and he thought, _It looks like it's smiling. It must be very happy it found me, I guess._

Then the pain hit him all at once and he screamed and he smashed his left fist into the Lizalfos's face. It let go with a spurt of blood and broken teeth and his arm felt like it was on fire, then the Lizalfos was squalling and the others were swarming, a storm of lithe bodies and reaching claws and curved swords and fire, lots and lots of fire, and then they were all on top of him.

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE**_ : Whew! Another one down!

Part of the reason this one took so long is that I ended up having to rewrite a big part of it, and _another_ part had to be totally excised and saved for another chapter. On the plus side: the next couple should come considerably quicker!

The Daruk memory is one where I wasn't sure what it would look like until I actually sat down and wrote it. I intended for it to have a lighter feel, but then I realized Zelda would probably defend her father, and, well, here we are. Let me know if that part went in too heavy, or if you feel that I did not treat with some element of that sequence seriously enough.

And thank you, always, for reading.


	23. The Abandoned Northern Mine

Yunobo's arm was still burning, not fire but that nerve-burning that had followed him punching the Lizalfos off his forearm (and oh _man_ were there still teeth _stuck in his arm?_ ) and hadn't abated at all. Weird how that was the thing that was bothering him most, considering. Weird how he was able to think about it at all, really!

He had no idea how many Lizalfos were on the outside of Daruk's Protection (which was definitely earning its name today) trying to get in, trying to cut through it with their jagged swords or pierce it with fire arrows launched from their bone-carved bows or simply trying to cook it by belching fire at it. He knew there were _too many_ , but he couldn't take time to count them, because the one that was inside the barrier _with him_ was doing its best to tear him apart.

"Come on! Can't we talk about this? I feel like neither of us is getting anything here!"

With one hand he had its neck pinned to the ground; the other arm he used to protect his face as it clawed and hissed and lashed at him with its barbed tongue. It was _writhing_ , trying to slip from between his fingers, but if he was strong in no other way then Yunobo was confident he had a decent grip. Well, he _hoped_ he did, because if he didn't then this thing was going to go for his eyes. Actually, it might already be going for his eyes, and just couldn't reach them yet. Had it clawed open the part of his arm specifically covering his eyes? He couldn't tell, that whole area was bleeding. Just about the only thing he could take solace in was that it hadn't tried to bite him anymore, owing to all the missing teeth.

"OK. It's OK. Just… think about this. Breathe. If you breathe, and you think, you can—"

The Lizalfos hissed and dug its clawed into his wrist, twisting with all the strength of its shoulders, and he could feel the skin tearing like paper. He had to try very hard not to scream. Screaming wouldn't help. It certainly wouldn't make this thing stop trying to kill him, or any of its friends.

In the back of his mind, Yunobo was reasonably certain that he was going to die. He didn't have any weapons to fight with, and why had he thought it would be a good idea to come to the Northern Mine without any weapons? There were monsters! Monsters were the entire reason it had been abandoned! They'd even started calling it the _Abandoned Northern Mine_ to reference its abandonment due to monsters! And now he was stuck here, stuck inside an impenetrable shield with a monster that very plainly wanted to kill him, surrounded by a _lot_ more that wanted to kill him, and he had no way out. What was he supposed to do, wait for rescue? Even if he was visible from where Drak was standing, it would take the guard most of a day to figure out anything was wrong, and then hours more before he decided whether to run for help.

But he couldn't drop the shield. The Lizalfos were everywhere, and they would _definitely_ kill him. So, he'd… wait? And hope the Lizalfos didn't break his grip? He'd been like this for the better part of an hour already. How long could he go without sleeping? Or eating? Or just _cramping_ , even? Oh man was he getting a cramp now? His thumb was twitching really badly, he could feel it all the way down in his wrist, and if it started in his wrist then pretty soon it'd be in his forearm, and…

There was an explosion of sound and vapor outside of the barrier, and he screamed in surprise and panic as the Lizalfos turned in unison. He couldn't see over them, but he saw them gesturing with their swords, hopping up and down, heard them hissing frustration and some new anger, _oh man I hope nobody just wandered into this mess oh please let nobody else be in any trouble because I'm so weak_.

A wave of air rolled past, so cold it left a layer of frost on the outside of Daruk's Protection, so cold that as a body each of the fire Lizalfos screamed, momentarily frozen in looks of shock, and then exploded into vapor. Their weapons clattered to the stone, the heat of the mountain stripping the ice from them and leaving them steaming.

"Excuse me!" He could barely make out the words over the sounds of the roiling lava and the Lizalfos (which was now fighting _much_ harder), but that was definitely a voice! A… Hylian voice? "Are you all right, in there? We saw the commotion and came as quickly as we could!"

"I'm sorry! Hold on, I can't really hear… just a second!" Daruk's Protection was kept up not by an effort of his body—though it _was_ linked to his physical endurance—but by an effort of his will. He closed his eyes, concentrating, and focused on the feeling of the barrier; solid, more solid by far than his own body or even the stone of the mountain, a shield that separated and protected him from almost any danger. Bringing it down was always difficult, even if he was safe, but in this case, he barely had to concentrate at all before it winked out and disappeared. The Lizalfos on the ground was still hissing, still clawing, but with the barrier gone the echo of its voice wasn't so deafening.

He finally looked at his rescuer; well, rescuers; two Hylian women, one with blonde hair and wearing the Flamebreaker armor, the other with silver hair and wearing Sheikah garb… save the Flamebreaker boots, which she looked very uncomfortable in. The woman in the full set was holding a small blue object that looked as cold as anything he'd ever even heard stories about. Was that a _magic rod_? Something like the Wizzrobes carried?

"Oh, wow! You really saved my life! Thank you so much. I would have been done for if you hadn't shown up, goro!" The Lizalfos kicked at his face, which he only barely warded off with his arm. "Listen, I'm really sorry, since you just got done saving my life and all, but could you help me again, goro? I don't have any weapons to fight this thing with, and…"

The women looked at Yunobo, at the wounds on his arms, and then at each other. The silver-haired one drew a bow from her back, and an ice arrow from her quiver. "Be very still."

Oh, _that_ he could do. The words were barely out of her mouth when he stopped moving altogether, holding as still and rigid as the stone faces overlooking Goron City. Even his arm. Even his fingers! Even while the Lizalfos was struggling, and actually it had renewed its efforts as soon as it saw the two women, and the muscle running from the base of his wrist all the way up to his elbow was starting to seize. OK, maybe he _couldn't_ hold perfectly still, but if he tried then—

The cramp struck at exactly the wrong moment, and the Lizalfos twisted out of his grip. It was on all fours, hissing, already _lunging_ for the two women who had saved his life, and he had this terrible image of it sinking its broken, jagged teeth into one of them and he swung his free fist with all his strength.

 _Crunch_.

The Lizalfos's horn broke off and went spinning through the air as the Lizalfos exploded into dark-coloured, foul-smelling vapor and his fist collided with the ground (and, yes, now that he was looking at it, his arm _did_ have broken teeth embedded in the skin). The sound of the horn clattering on the ground was even louder than the weapons had been.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, goro! I couldn't hold it and it was going to attack you and I panicked! Are you OK? Oh man, after everything you did, goro…"

"We're fine!" The woman with the golden hair cut him off, smiling, trying to reassure him but also putting up her hands to let him know he needed to stop. Oh, he knew that signal. Bludo liked that one a _lot_ when he was scared of something. "I promise. We're fine. We have sustained no injury at all. Are you Yunobo? Bludo sent us to look for you."

" _Boss_ sent you after me? I haven't even gotten his medicine yet. He must be worried sick."

"I wouldn't say worried sick," the blonde woman said. "My name is Zelda, and my companion is Paya. It's a pleasure to meet you." The silver-haired woman—Paya—nodded, and Zelda continued. "May I look at your arm, please? I would like to treat your injuries, if possible." She didn't wait for him to extend it, exactly; she took it in her hands and pulled it, found it much heavier than she had anticipated, and then hoisted it up so his hand rested on her shoulder. "Turn your elbow so you can keep your arm straight but relaxed. Good." She reached forward, touching one of the long teeth embedded in Yunobo's skin.

"Tss!" He winced, shutting his eyes and turning his head away. Ooo, he did not like this at all, but even that realization didn't stem the tide of sudden shame. _Come on, Yunobo, don't act so cowardly in front of the people who just saved your life_ , but of course he couldn't help it.

"Fascinating." A pressure on his skin. Was she pulling the teeth out or poking the skin around them? He couldn't tell. He couldn't look. "To have this many broken off with such uniform spacing would require an application of force at a sheer angle, and a _lot_ of resistance… your body is _remarkably_ tough."

Wait, what? That didn't make any sense. "Well, I mean, not really. For a Goron I'm considered pretty, uh… wimpy."

"I find that difficult to believe. Anyone who can stand up to these monsters for as long as you did is remarkably resilient."

"That's not really me, goro. Lord Daruk was my ancestor, and I inherited Daruk's Protection from him. That's really all I have to my name. Bludo's always telling me that I need to be more like Lord Daruk, goro, or at least _try_ to be, but I never seem to be able to do anything the way he would have. I just don't have… whatever he had. I think he'd be disappointed in me." Why was he being so open about all of this?

A soothing coolness spread over his arm, cooler but also more pleasant than fresh water. That coolness made him feel… calm. Everything he'd been thinking about Lord Daruk, and Bludo, and the Lizalfos all started to recede, not disappearing but becoming less distinct. He felt… lighter.

"Wow. _Wow_ , that's _really_ nice, goro." Without even thinking about it, he opened his eyes and looked at his arm, saw that Zelda's hands were awash in a pale blue light that seemed to feed that coolness, that calmness, directly into him. More, his wounds were _gone_. "How are you doing that?"

"This is a healing technique that I learned from a Zora Princess." Behind the helmet, Zelda's smile was… sad? Why was she sad? Her being sad was making his eyes sting, he couldn't tear up in front of her, he'd already embarrassed himself enough today. "Here, give me your other arm, too. Good. This one might take a moment longer, though—Bludo mentioned you were here looking for his medicine?"

"Yeah, I was. Bludo used to be head of the mining operations, and his medicine for his back was always kept in storehouses at the Northern and Summit mines. We had to evacuate both so fast that we didn't manage take his medicine with us, so he's been going without for a long time, goro, and he's really hurting. I was trying to get to the Northern storehouse, but… well, you saw. And if I don't get Bludo his medicine, we won't be able to drive off Vah Rudania next time it comes around, goro!" He _wanted_ to panic, he realized; he was leaning into that mood like a defense mechanism. The coolness of the Zora healing technique wouldn't really let him, though, so instead he found himself wondering why he was trying to panic. That didn't make a lot of sense, did it?

"Is that the storehouse, to the north?" It was the first time he'd heard Paya's voice, and it took him aback: high but smooth, projecting a depth of calm that he didn't know if he'd ever heard before. Wow! Wow he liked her voice.

"Y-yeah. There used to be bridges connecting all the islands, but between the monsters and all the earthquakes they've all been destroyed, goro."

"Zelda, there are vents between most of the islands which are blowing out updrafts. We might be able to use our paragliders to cross between them." She was looking at everything and taking it all in at once, addressing the problem like… like it wasn't even really a _problem_ , more like it was just a room she had to maneuver through.

"I'll defer to you. Yunobo, can you climb?"

"Y-yeah! I may not be able to do much because I'm so scrawny, but I'm a good climber, goro! I was planning to just wade between the islands and climbs the rocks after." It would have been _warm_ , but he'd probably be able to take the heat long enough to get the medicine and get back without being scalded. Something in that must have struck them, because both Zelda and Paya looked at his face, and he could feel his color rising. "Y-you know. If I had made it."

Zelda lifted her hands from his arm, patting it once, and he lifted it off her shoulder, holding it up, turning it, inspecting it. He did the same with the other arm. There wasn't a sign that he'd been in a fight at all. Hylians who took lessons from Zora had _strong_ healing. Maybe he should ask her to look at the Boss's back?

"Would you be willing to accept our help, Yunobo? There are monsters in the way, still, and I notice what looks like cannons on several of the outcroppings in the lava. I think that if you showed us how to operate them, we might be able to render assistance in retrieving Bludo's medicine."

He looked back and forth between them—one regarded him with a warm smile and the other with a calm, measured appraisal that assumed nothing even as it observed everything. Something important was going on, here, if the Boss had seen fit to ask two Hylians to help out. Yunobo might not be able to understand much, but he understood _that_ , and he understood that having them look to him, having the opportunity to work with them, set a fire in his chest.

* * *

The Lizalfos milled about on the small spaces they had been set to guard, the wide set of their independently tracking eyes giving each of them an enormous cone of awareness. They could not see _far_ , but within the dozens of meters where their vision was clear almost nothing would escape their attention.

Any other subspecies of Lizalfos would have burned to death simply standing in the air of Death Mountain, much less above the exposed lava that had bubbled up from beneath the abandoned Northern Mine. These, though, were Fire Lizalfos, who held flames in their guts, who could spark conflagrations with their breath. Short of the molten stone that roiled and glowed beneath them, no degree of heat was so terrible that they could not endure it. Their weapons were constructed to the same end; though they appeared to be reinforced with bone, that was a trick of their metallurgy. No bones save their own (or, perhaps, Gorons) would last long in this heat.

The days were long and monotonous, and the Lizalfos of the Northern Mine betrayed their true origins in that they did not sleep. They were given perfectly to that single purpose: to guard, to watch, without breaking the monotony through rest or repast. What changes did come came invariably from without, and it had been some time since the Gorons were so brave as to push against them.

So, when the monotony broke, in fire and light and the color blue, it came as a surprise to them.

One sentry saw a flash of movement in the distance, but its vision was not so clear that it could be sure of anything. A blur the color of fire and stone, another blur of somewhat lighter hue, and a third that for all the world looked like a rock rolling across the lava before climbing a cliff face. The sentry stood at its full height, craned its neck back and forth, taking in the scene with both of its eyes, but could not make anything of it. Movement, yes, and there shouldn't have been movement, but it could not be sure of what it was looking at. It did not _patrol_. It merely _watched_. That was its purpose, and so it did not pursue this strange phenomenon.

Its hearing was sharper than its eyes, though not by much, so when the voices of those blurs were raised in questions about the operation of the cannon, it could not discern what was being said. Lizalfos, like bokoblins, had their own language, and each spoke the language of the other, and _all_ could understand Hylian when they so chose, but the sounds of the mountain were too strong, the voices too faint.

A blur of blue light, the sound of a hammer ringing on iron. The other sentry on the outcropping looked up then, too, joining its fellow in craning, and listening, and trying to understand.

Then there was a flash of blue, and the cannon fired, and they did not have time to react before a flaming, explosive projectile fell upon them. The impact, to say nothing of the eruption that followed it, sent them flying, lifeless, their bodies dropping into the exposed lava as quickly and as smoothly as if it were water. The sounds of the mountain continued, and the other sentry stations did not raise the alarm; they were spaced far enough apart that it was difficult for each to see its neighbor, and the eruption of the cannon was not far removed from the roiling of the mountain's blood.

So it went. The creatures of Ganon saw the interlopers, these invaders-of-the-invaders, only rarely and briefly; one pair was close enough to a cannon that they recognized the threat, but they had no horn with which to warn the other sentries. They loosed fire arrows in an endless hail, but each projectile burst and sputtered and died against the crystalline light of the Champion's power. They did not understand, quite, what they were seeing. They did not have time to wonder. The cannon fired.

Bit by bit the sentries were removed; a platform shattered, a tiny fortress rent to splinters that burned in the air almost as soon as it split, a dozen explosions punctuated by high, predatory screams. Red tails were shed in a defensive reflex that did nothing to protect their owners, and these were collected by the princess, who wondered at their properties.

This was not a long-term solution; all three of them knew that if the Lizalfos were slain here then they would only appear here again when the earth bled. To drive them out fully would require forcing them away from the mine while they still lived, perhaps by driving them further up the mountain where the climate might take care of them on its own. This was only temporary, but that did not stop the three.

They came to the supply house, which was blocked off by a collapsing stone, knocked loose by Death Mountain's restlessness. They blasted it clear, and retrieved the medicine, and left that place together, two carried by the wind and one stepping lightly through the glowing magma. Yunobo wanted to cheer, but he did not; if he did, then his companions might think less of him, after all.

* * *

"I'm sorry these aren't really suited to the task." Paya's apology was tinged with disappointment; the shears in her hands were heavy, not delicate like she would have preferred. The inn's owner had not had any other scissors handy, had in fact handed over his own personal pair to the two guests when they'd checked into their room. "I guess the Gorons don't really have the same considerations when cutting their hair…"

"I'm sure it will be fine; I trust you. Even if it's not… hair grows back." Zelda spent a second to wonder at her own hair, actually: she had been a princess, once, and doubtless she had been assisted in the care of her hair by other people. Still, she remembered what it had been like in the time before, how it had _felt_ , and knew that she must have taken some pride in it. She didn't feel that now. "In fact, we could skip past worrying about it! You could give me a short style… like a page's cut! Or perhaps even shorter."

"I-I will of course cut your hair however you please, Princess." Never mind the fact that she'd called her Princess again, Paya's hands were audibly shaking and so was her voice. Yes, she'd definitely chop off all of Zelda's hair if asked, but she'd be blinded by tears while doing it.

"Or you could just trim the burnt ends a little, and we'll tend to the finer shaping later."

Paya sighed in relief behind her—a sigh that was cut off halfway through, as if she'd just caught herself doing it. "As you wish. I will try and determine the extent of the damage."

Zelda could not feel her hair, precisely, but she could feel _Paya_ , her presence and her proximity. It was probably the effect of the goddess's power saturating her awareness, or possibly of her memory returning, or maybe even the small amount that Paya still held inside of her; regardless of the reason, she could more-than-see the care and tenderness with which she took Zelda's hair in her hands, running her fingertips down the length of a collection of strands. Something in the other woman's motions was … not affectionate, exactly. _More_ than affectionate, really. Reverent? _I must get my mind away from these avenues because it is not fair and she doesn't know I can sense her but also I can't tell her_. "I can't imagine it's too bad. My head was only exposed for a few moments, wasn't it?"

"A few moments," Paya's voice not at all betraying her flinch. "Yes. It mostly seems to be damage at the tips. I will do my best to make this as even as possible, but it will take time and I am not working with perfect tools."

"Of course." Forefinger and middle finger with hair laid across them, thumb holding a golden lock in place against them. She could feel it as Paya fought the urge to rub the hair between her fingers. Zelda closed her eyes, tried to think of something else. Was she holding the goddess power? She _was_. She'd been holding it since she had recovered her memory! She hadn't even realized it!

She let go, and her senses fell completely back into her own head, and she breathed relief just as the shears cut through for the first time.

 _Snip._

What a relief! To know her hair was being cut only from the sound of it, knowing what lock was being held from the faint pressure on her scalp. She hadn't meant to do that, but it was still an invasion, wasn't it? Paya wouldn't see it that way; in her mind Zelda was only just removed from being a god, and these things were expected of her, but.

 _Snip_.

Metal on metal, with hair between. Good shears, if oversized. Sure, steady hands, regardless of how much Paya's heart must have been racing. Oh, she was doing wrong even in this. Surely their closeness hurt Paya, too? That she'd told Paya she could not respond to her feelings did not mean that Paya was insulated from the effects of being near to her. She was being cruel in this. But how much crueler would it be to suggest anything else?

 _Snip_.

Metal on metal. Zelda thought of the sound of Paya fighting, her weapon clashing with those of the Yiga. She'd heard that sound so clearly when she rose up from the darkness, lifted out of death by Mipha's Grace, even over the sound of the power and the name of the dragon. She'd heard it so clearly, even after she'd died.

 _Snip_.

"Paya. I… I know it seems meaningless, but I am sorry." She could feel Paya about to ask why, so she pressed on. "Earlier, you were trying to protect me, and you warned me how dangerous that person was, and… everything that happened after that was because I didn't listen to you enough. I'm not even sorry that I stepped nearer to him," if she had; she couldn't remember, the moment was lost to her in the roar of the bombs going off, "but I'm sorry you had to see me like that. That I scared you so badly."

 _Snip_. Paya went on cutting, even as she talked. "It was… upsetting. Seeing you in the air like that, wreathed in smoke, and I couldn't see your face until you hit the ground." She paused, plainly considering her next words. "I wasn't thinking about Ganon, then, about what would happen if you died. Just about you. I was afraid of what it would be like to have to… gather you up, after. To carry you. To… to look at your… face…"

Zelda wanted to reach over her shoulder, to offer a hand in comfort or sympathy, but she could not; Paya had not stopped cutting. She thought about saying she was sorry again, though it would sound ridiculous, and so said nothing for half a minute. Then, once it had been long enough that she was sure Paya would not try to fill the silence herself: "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not yet. Please give me a little more time."

"Ah. Yes, please forgive me." She had _not_ meant that, but well enough. It might serve as a good segue. "Bludo said that Vah Rudania would pass around this side of the mountain in the early morning."

"I will be sure that both of us are ready for it." As ready as they could be, Zelda thought.

Silence, then, long minutes of silence as Paya cut delicately at the burned tips of Zelda's hair. It was slow going, not just due to the unwieldiness of the shears but also because every time Paya cut she took the time to lift away the severed length and set it gently aside. She was slowly forming a bit of a pile, Zelda could see out of the corner of her eye. What did one do with discarded hair, anyway? Treat it like floor sweepings, she would think, but somehow she didn't imagine Paya would be enthusiastic about that option. Still.

"I can't help but notice," and Zelda hoped she was not being rude with this, "that you are more… _comfortable_ around the Gorons than I would have anticipated."

Another silence as Paya mulled over that. "Do you remember how Bludo greeted us? And Krane, at the gate? And the shopkeeper?" And perhaps a dozen others that she could have named but didn't.

"They all called us 'brother.'"

"Yes, because that is how they saw us. Gorons are uniformly men, but they're not quite equivalent to the Gerudo; there are _no_ Goron who identify as women. They're mono-gendered."

Zelda's mind was suddenly racing. If that were true, why did they identify as men in particular? Why was masculinity the default? "Has it always been that way?"

"Goron historians actually think that the idea of masculinity—of gender—is something that they might have picked up after encountering the other peoples of Hyrule. The things that Gorons value culturally—strength, stolidity, boisterousness, a big appetite—were masculine-coded. Or, at least, that's one of the theories." A larger cut this time, slow and meticulous. "They don't see others as being feminine or apart from that binary, ever. Everyone and everything is simply more masculine or less masculine, and to them all Hylians, Sheikah, Zora, and Rito look various degrees less masculine than Gorons."

Shifting away from the question of culturally conferred and encoded gender felt like code switching between Hylian and Gerudo languages, and Zelda's thoughts nearly stumbled as she shifted back to thinking of this from Paya's perspective. "So, you're saying that… it's not that you're reacting to them differently than you would other men, precisely. It's that when they look at _you_ , they see someone like them, more or less, and you don't feel that same pressure."

"I think that's close." Paya's agreement was tinged with… sadness? Why was that? Before she could turn and ask, Paya set the shears on the nightstand. "Finished."

Zelda ran her fingers along the length of her hair, grasping at the tips—and finding that they were almost precisely the same length they had been before Paya started cutting. The pile of cuttings Paya had gathered was very fine, and for how thick Zelda's hair was that was saying something. "Is that all? I thought you would have to take off more."

"I only cut off the burned ends, but I promise that I have left nothing behind."

"I must not have been exposed to the heat of Death Mountain for very long." She smiled, genuinely happy for this thing that should have been small. "It will be good not to smell of burnt hair. Thank you, Paya."

The color leapt into Paya's face and she bowed, trying to say something and failing utterly to do more than mumble.

"Will you help me braid it? In the morning, I mean. It will make it so much easier to wear the helmet."

"Of course, Zelda."

* * *

Word had been delivered that Yunobo had gotten Bludo's medicine to him, and both were taking their rest. Zelda and Paya ate their dinner—Goron curry, prepared by the proprietors—and applied fireproof elixirs to their skin. When the owner offered to give them a massage, they declined, and took to their beds. Zelda was asleep in less than a minute, the exhaustions of the day telling on her again.

Paya sat up for a while longer. For nearly an hour she did not write, or read, or even watch the entrance to the inn; she simply sat up in bed and looked at Zelda. Made sure she was still there. Made sure that she was still real.

After that hour she rose from bed and took the small pile of trimmings in her hands. She was as good as her word, and there was nearly no gold in the darkened, twisted strands of cut hair, but in the light of the inn one could catch glimmers of that same brilliance when one looked at it.

Quietly, so she would not be heard by the innkeeper or disturb Zelda, Paya stepped outside, into the open air of Goron City. She looked around, ensuring that no one was watching—and no one was, at this time of night—then walked over to one of the metal bridges that spanned the gap between the isles of solid ground that made up the city. Standing at the edge of the bridge she looked down, into the roiling magma that was the heart of Death Mountain. She held her cupped hands out, whispered a prayer, and opened them.

"Keep her safe."

Zelda's hair flared as it fell, twisting into cinders and glowing and making her think of the elemental opposite of snowfall. There was no smell, save for the heavier smell of the mountain. She stood there, watching long after the light had gone out, waiting until she thought that whatever elemental particles were left might have settled on top of the glowing stone that flowed below.

She went back. Zelda had rolled over in her sleep, lying on her side so that she was facing Paya's bed. Her expression was different when she slept—there was no stress, no worry creasing her brow or pressure weighing down the sides of her mouth—but she also looked the same.

Paya looked away from her.

She got back into bed, took out her journal, and began to write.

Four hours before they would rise she put the journal back into her pack, said another prayer—this time to Hylia—and lay down in truth.

She fell asleep even faster than Zelda had.

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ Whew! Another down. I didn't end up using the part I discarded from the last chapter—that will come up in the next one, I think.

It was pointed out to me in a review that writing the Gorons as having flesh and blood isn't _really_ rooted in canon, which is true! I hadn't considered it when I wrote the first mention, though, and now I'm all in! No stopping me now.

I hope people end up liking how I treat Yunobo. He's one of my favorite characters, and I think Sidon tends to overshadow him so much that he goes underappreciated in most circles. Writing from his perspective is a lot of fun, though re-read his dialogue made me realize he says "goro" to cap his sentences _much_ more often than I thought he did.

Please let me know if anything in this chapter worked well for you! But, more, let me know if there are parts that you think I could do _better_ , or that you just want to see going forward. I can't promise to do everything that folks want to see in this story, and there are some things that would be hard for me to change, but any suggestions or criticism can help improve how I approach all story elements as we move forward.

Thank you for reading.


	24. Attack by Vah Rudania

The sun rose, and Vah Rudania rounded the mountain.

Over and around the mountain did Rudania tread, its wide-toed feet giving it easy grip on the steep rockfaces where the other Divine Beasts would find no purchase. The mountainside shook under it, though not from its weight; the heart of the mountain, fire and stone, roiled and shuddered in its passing, as if its very presence stoked the fires that would wipe the range clean. Every step was an earthquake; every turning of its head was an eruption.

To look at it one might think its shape derived from the lizards that walked freely and comfortably on Death Mountain, though that was not the truth. Its model was ancient, many thousands of years extinct, though the oldest chronicles of Goron history still bore that terrible name: _Dodongo._

Even that comparison failed to capture it for what it was. Only in seeing it from Goron City, how the plumes of ash from the mountainside served to frame it, how the twitching of its tail was visible from all those miles away, could one really appreciate its insistent reality. Its enormous head pointed to Goron City, and the sound it made was like a roar from a beast more terrible than dragons; Death Mountain was _its_ mountain, and all other peoples, even the Gorons, were only pretenders in comparison.

Goron City was a stain on the mountainside, perhaps; that would explain why it had moved on the city before, only to be driven back by its few defenders. Though they were close, though they _should_ have been, the Gorons were not helpless against the power of Rudania. To attack them from the front invited pain, or even damage, and the power that drove the Divine Beast could ill afford to do harm to its greatest, most precious tool. More obliquely, then, it would approach; more carefully would it author the doom of the Gorons.

Chambers in the side of the Divine Beast opened, and like wasps pouring from the hive did flying machines issue forth, propellers carrying them high in the air. They bore no weaponry of their own—they were sentries, not Guardians—but each of them was connected to Rudania. What they could see, _it_ could see, and on their targets it would unleash its wrath.

Forty sentries rose into the sky; Rudania's internal factories would need time to make more, so it kept some number in reserve. They were points of light and darkness, flitting through the air; to watch them, one might think them only birds.

* * *

Kilometers away, Zelda and Paya stepped out of the inn, carrying only the gear they would need during the day. Zelda held the Flamebreaker helmet under her right arm, though she was otherwise fully dressed, and her hair hung down in a long, thick braid as she took in the light of morning. Paya, next to her, had foregone the Flamebreaker boots in favor of a more potent fireproof elixir, and she had prepared several more in case they should be necessary. They had had some discussion about it, though in the end Zelda acquiesced to the argument that Paya might end up needing every advantage her speed could confer.

"Are you ready?" Zelda asked, in a way that said she herself absolutely was not.

Paya didn't answer, at first; instead she looked at Zelda, and then at the mountain, and then at the sky. Still taking in the light and the clouds, she said, "If I had known what we would be facing before the journey began, fighting the Divine Beasts and being attacked by Ganon, I don't think I would have had the courage to come with you. If I had, I would have assumed that I would eventually get used to this sense of impending peril." She held up her hands, and Zelda saw they were shaking. "If it's going to happen, it hasn't yet."

Zelda had the urge to put her hand on Paya's arm, to reassure her through touch, and quashed it. "We don't know how we will be approaching Vah Rudania, but it may not be like Vah Ruta. If your assistance is not necessary for reaching the Divine Beast, you are of course free to stay here."

Paya went wide-eyed with an expression that shifted from shock to hurt to fear to determination with such rapidity that Zelda thought there might have been a few more changes she wasn't fast enough to catch. "If my presence is ever a… burden to you, I will withdraw. Failing that, so long as there is a chance that I may be able to assist, I will stay by you regardless of the danger."

There was a promise there, deeper than the words, and Zelda could feel it like a physical object she was holding in her hands. She had known, intellectually and through the intimacy of the goddess's power, that Paya was willing to give her life in the service of their quest. This had frequently disturbed her, but never quite so much as it did in that moment. She had felt herself die the day before; she had experienced, however briefly, the oblivion to which Paya would willingly consign herself. For Hylia. For _Zelda_. It should have been an enormous, beautiful thing, but now her stomach was twisting into knots and she remembered intimately the pain and sorrow of the Champions swearing themselves to her.

"I am walking through a world of ghosts," and it was as true as when she had said it in front of Mipha's statue. "I carry them with me. They _speak_ to me. I would not have your voice added to theirs."

Paya flushed, not in embarrassment but in a cocktail of emotions that Zelda could not parse—but even without the goddess awareness she could see the tightening of Paya's jaw, the low heat of anger at an injustice, the need to argue. Then she swallowed all the complexities of what she was feeling, and said, "I understand. I will be safe, as best as I am able."

Now Zelda did touch her arm, and Paya's other hand came up, and their fingers brushed together. They were not angry with one another, and each knew that the other knew. That would have to be enough.

"I propose that we make our way to Bludo's house." The Gorons started their days early, apparently, as even now children were rolling about with abandon and shops had already opened, their proprietors standing outside to hawk their wares. Ramella wasn't up yet, but other traveling merchants were milling about, taking in the sights of the city and preparing for their long day of business. "Whatever the means by which we address Vah Rudania, we will need his instruction. With luck, his medicine will have had time to take effect, and—"

" ** _ALARM!_** " Zelda and Paya both looked up at the sound of the guard's cry coming from the northern end of the city, issued from a diaphragm so mighty his voice must have echoed inside every building. " ** _ALARM! VAH RUDANIA'S SENTRIES ARE ON THE MOVE!_** "

* * *

" ** _ALARM!_** " Beneath the carved faces of Goron heroes Yunobo winced at the volume of the shout, even as far away as he was.

The call of the alarm sent people running; the Gorons reacted first, scrambling and rolling into their homes, their speed a product of careful drilling and real, omnipresent fear of the annihilation bearing down on them. The traveling merchants were next, running as a group back to the inn or taking refuge in the Boss's house, which was as good for cover as any other. Good! With so few tourists, that meant everyone should be safe, which meant there would be time to wait for Bludo to get ready, and…

"Oh no," Yunobo said, as two Hylians ran _toward_ the danger, only just stopped by the guard who had raised the alarm, and didn't they know what _alarm_ meant? The streets were empty, now all they needed was for Bludo to arrive, ready to keep out the threat—but why wouldn't those two _leave_? Didn't they know how _dangerous_ this was? "Oh, _man_ …"

Then he realized who he was looking at, saw a braid of golden hair disappear beneath a donned Flamebreaker helmet, the crown of silver hair on top of the other head. Zelda and Paya were running _toward_ the danger. Of course they were! They'd done plenty of things like this already, why wouldn't they run to help now? But they didn't understand!

OK. OK, he could be calm about this. He could. _He_ wasn't in danger, after all. Daruk's Protection wasn't just for show, even if the only thing he knew how to do with it was stand in one place and take a beating. It was just everyone _else_ who would be in danger if he didn't stand in the right place, or if he couldn't keep going for long enough, or if his channeling failed, or if he didn't start moving soon. That's all. Just the whole city would crumble and everyone in it would die if he was too scared, or too slow, or too foolish, or just unlucky.

" _Yunobo!_ " The same guard who had raised the alarm, his voice carrying from clear across the city even as he danced back and forth to keep the two Hylians from getting past his out-stretched arms. "We need you _now!_ "

Yunobo stood on the path that wended over and around the city, snaking beneath the mountainous faces of Goron heroes from the distant past. It was the place he came to be alone, yes, but it _also_ let him see almost everything in the city: that vantage point was, people thought, why he liked to be up there. They'd started to think of him as a _protector_ , why had he ever let them do that? And its vantage was no good for _this_ situation, because he couldn't actually _see_ Death Mountain's peak from his perch. He inhaled deep, and shouted: " _How close is Rudania_?" His voice didn't carry _quite_ as well as the guard's, but it did all right.

"It's not Rudania! Sentries coming! Maybe three dozen! They're nearly to the last line!"

The gravel in his guts clumped together into what felt like a boulder and it was all he could do not to be sick. There were two kinds of incursions that Vah Rudania might make: when it walked on its own, it would make the ground shake and probably destroy everything with its feet once it arrived. Still, it was relatively easy to drive off; it didn't like taking impacts to the head. But when it sent its sentries instead, when it didn't put itself in range of being attacked, that meant they were bringing _fire_.

Bludo's cannons were set up outside of the city; the reinforcements that kept them from tearing themselves apart meant they could only be rotated just so far, and they'd be useless if the sentries slipped past the zone where their firing lines intersected. Which they would in seconds. Which meant the only way to deal with them was to shoot them down with arrows, or else throw rocks at them.

He acted without thinking: Boss had told him that if he spent too long thinking he was going to get people killed, so there was no thinking to be done. He rolled, his scrawny (for a Goron) frame tearing along the path until he hit the stone outcropping at the end of it. He launched off it, still spinning, and hit the side of the cliff face under the stone monuments. The stone cropping on his back dug into the sheer wall of rock, giving him enough traction to keep climbing. He had to get up high. That was first.

* * *

"What part of 'run away because the Divine Beast is going to kill you' do you two not _get_ , brothers? Hey! Hey listen to me! I will pick you up and carry to safety, goro! _Hey!_ "

Zelda ignored the guard as Paya stepped between them, instead reaching down into herself and grabbing hold of the goddess's power. Not so much that it could be seen, not enough to announce herself as Paya subtly but firmly forced the guard away from her, but enough to open the gates of her mind, to expand her senses beyond the confines of her body. The world around her did not fade away, but it became a single part of something much larger. With her thoughts she reached out, seeking for the emissaries of the Divine Beast, feeling for the touch of the Blight inside of them. If she could find it and snuff it out…

There. Forty of them, bits of light and stone and fire and metal whirring through the air on propellers that seemed too small to support their frames. Given the amount of energy they were putting out, the infestation should be trivial to clean. Taking hold of more of the power she plunged into the heart of one of them, and… it was clean?

"There's no Blight," she said out loud, and Paya turned to look at her as the Goron guard stared, somewhere between furious and mystified. "There's no Malice in any of them at all."

"If there's no Malice," Paya said, "then why are they dangerous?"

"They're _dangerous_ because if they spot you then Vah Rudania is going to rain death on you, goro!"

"He's right. There's no Malice in them, but there doesn't have to be; they're not independent units at all, they're more like nodes for the instructions fed to them by Vah Rudania. They don't even navigate on their own. They relay visual information and use relative positioning between each other and the Divine Beast as a kind of targeting system, though I don't know how that relates to any weapon system. It's almost topographical… but that doesn't matter right now! I can't clear the Malice from here! To stop it we'd have to reach into Vah Rudania itself!"

The guard made good on his promise; he lunged and reached for Paya, meaning to hoist her and then Zelda before running. Paya responded by slipping inside of his reach, planting her hip against his leg, and throwing him like a sack of grain.

"I'm guessing that isn't an option," Paya said, and the guard yelped and swore as he was sent rolling down the hill.

"Not without drawing on enough of the power to bring Ganon's wrath on us, and maybe not even then." Think, think! "There must be alternative methods for dealing with these things. Not bomb arrows, but maybe if we used shock arrows we could force them into rebooting and—"

Her senses snapped back to her body. The first of the sentries crested the top of the hill; the sound it made was much louder than she had imagined, and its frame was larger, too. The eye beneath it radiated a deep red light that stood out against the red of the stone, the red of the sky, the red of the fires—it felt artificial, aggressive, instantly dangerous. Like a lantern, almost. It was ahead of the pack, but not by very much; more would follow.

Then from above them, _high_ above them, came the sound of a Goron screaming in a combination of determination and raw, genuine terror.

* * *

Yunobo did not see, really, as he fell; no thinking, no seeing, he was well on his way to just _being_ a rock instead of eating them. He had to empty his thoughts to do things like this. It was a weakness, but he had to live with it. Or try to.

He didn't really see it, but he had spaced his jump properly, and he reached out for the sentry he knew would be there. He slammed down onto it from above with his abdomen, instantly breaking the rotor and sending its shattered blades spinning off in three different directions. The stone and metal cracked and buckled from the weight of his body and the strength of his grip and the two of them dropped together like a single unit.

It exploded when they hit the ground. The shockwave went through his body, he could _feel_ the ripple as if he were made of water, and the force of the blow blinded him for a moment. His teeth seemed to be stuck together, and the only sound in the world was a very high-pitched whine.

 _Well. One down._

Hands on his arms, two pairs, trying to lift him to his feet, not quite managing it.

"I'm OK," he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he was. "I'm OK, goro. Just gonna get up."

" _Yunobo!_ " Zelda's mouth was pressed almost against the side of his head. She wasn't shouting but he could _clearly_ hear her voice from inside her helmet, only she sounded like she was echoing _twice_. "What is _that_?"

Fighting through the ringing and the haze Yunobo looked up. Red light, he brought up his arm to shield his eyes from it, and then behind the high-pitched ringing and Zelda's voice he heard a squeal, a _siren_ , and that made his insides turn to liquid. There wouldn't be enough time, now. Bludo still wasn't here, and now everything was starting, and it was about to get very bad.

"Get back! Get away, goro!"

* * *

It was the comfortable lie of the peoples of Hyrule that the Divine Beast of Death Mountain had no special powers to match its fellows. Vah Ruta summoned endless amounts of pure water. Vah Naboris could call down lightning from a cloudless sky. Vah Medoh must control the winds, for it could fly despite the Rito insisting that was a physical impossibility. No such power had ever been granted to Vah Rudania, it was thought. Swifter than the other beasts, surer of its footing on less even terrain, _that_ was the real power Rudania was ascribed; what else would it really need? When Death Mountain grew restless, shifting and starting like a giant caught in the throes of nightmare, it was taken as an omen of Ganon. When the heat of the mountain grew so great that flesh exposed to its air would burst into flame, that was seen as an unfortunate shifting of the geological seasons. When Rudania beat its rage into the mountainside and Death Mountain vomited fire and stone into the heavens, it must have been the effects of the physical force applied to it.

So did the peoples of Hyrule continued to believe. And while they believed, the shadow that rode the spine of Vah Rudania reached out through the Divine Beast's power. It read the information fed back by the drones—the appearance of the Champion's inherited power, isolated from the weaponry of the city. Its location, just to the north of the dwellings of those pests on the mountainside. Two more figures, unimportant and doomed as the Champion's descendant was. With thirty-nine points of data it could not be surer of its target.

With Vah Rudania's power it reached down into the heart of the mountain, and earth and fire alike responded to its call. Death Mountain heaved, and Vah Rudania roared, a sound so enormous that the air around it was pushed back in a visible bubble of light and heat, and then there was _fire_.

Fire and lava spewed into the air, a projectile to rival the wrath of Ganon itself, tracing an arc over the side of the mountain, reaching out to Goron City. Then there was another. And another. And another.

And more would follow.

* * *

It was with arresting gentleness that Yunobo put his hands on Zelda's arms, and she became aware in a distant way that he was even stronger than he looked, and he looked _strong_. Paya was there, instantly, eyes wide and not quite angry, as Yunobo pushed the princess toward her attendant.

"If you're within ten meters of me in the next few seconds," he said, "you are going to die, goro."

Without being quite sure of what she was going to say, she opened her mouth—and the words she would have summoned left her instantly as Paya grabbed her by the shoulders and did not _quite_ drag her away from Yunobo, further into Goron City.

"Paya!" She was sputtering, so surprised she couldn't even manage to be offended. "We can't just leave him there! Not when we don't understand what he's dealing with!"

"We will render him every assistance possible," and Paya was not trying to be conciliatory; this was surely the tone Impa had used with her, a lifetime ago, when the two of them disagreed and Impa refused to obey her, "when we are sure of what the threat is."

That made perfect sense, and she instantly rejected it. She shrugged Paya's hands off and wheeled on her, and the look of steely determination on the Sheikah girl's face turned to shock and shame and something like terror at the weight of Zelda's regard. Behind them, the blaring of the sentry's sirens was slowly being drowned out by a high whistle. "If you think for even a _moment_ that I will—"

They were fifteen meters away from Yunobo when he was struck by Rudania's fury.

* * *

The impact sent a jet of earth and fire into the air, the shock of force making the ground jump like water struck by a stone. Paya and Zelda were flung into the air by the earth rolling beneath them, and though Paya landed on her feet Zelda landed flat on her back.

Yunobo did not move; Daruk's Protection shone like a beacon, visible through the fire and the smoke, and the earth underneath him was nearly undisturbed as the force of the impact was shunted away and back into the air. So bright was the light of his power than an observer would not have been able to see the young Goron as he held up his fists in the position he had been told Daruk used when defending the other Champions, as the weight of the Divine Beast's attack drained him of his strength. The second impact rocked the landscape, as did the third, and the seventh, and the fifteenth.

All over Goron City did the Gorons huddle in their homes, though they were not afraid; yes, the attack was closer now than it had been before, but Yunobo was there, wasn't he? He was a descendant of Daruk. He _always_ ate his gravel. There was nothing to worry about, so long as he did his job.

In Bludo's house, the boss of the Gorons rolled out of his bed, the seizing of his back so extreme that he could not stand but not so extreme that he couldn't claw his way across the floor. Ah, he could _hear_ his bones grinding together, yes sir, not just his imagination today, but also, he barely noticed it. Impacts that close meant that the drones had slipped past every line of defense and gotten into the city itself, or as good as, and if they were following that rapidly then Rudania was trying to wipe them all out. He tried to call out, to reach his medicine (which would take effect too late to be more than useless), to do _anything_ , and found he did not have the strength as his body betrayed him.

Outside, Zelda shouted instructions over the roar and Paya was off at a run, nearly flying up the cliff faces that would put her at a vantage point over Yunobo and the sentries. Seeing her rising, Zelda reached deep and grabbed hold of Hylia's strength, and Goron City was filled with a golden light.

* * *

The impacts did not affect Yunobo physically. Well, not _directly_. There were definitely some _indirect_ consequences, his suddenly bleeding nose could attest. The most direct effect was the heavy blow he could feel against the very foundation of his thoughts, that made it difficult to be sure of where he was or why he was doing what he was doing. Daruk's Protection ( _always Daruk's Protection, never Yunobo's Protection, it would never_ be _Yunobo's Protection because he couldn't be a hero_ ) blocked out the worst of the sound and the brightest parts of the light, but the world outside was still chaos, a repeating percussive din as the strength of his will was all that kept him from being pulverized by explosions.

It _was_ his will, too. He could feel it bleeding out of him, he had never thought of it as a thing that could _be_ limited but of course it was. What difference was there between this and when he wanted to stop while trying to eat all his food, or not wanting to continue while going through his training with Bludo, or not being able to take listening to people talk about how great Daruk was and how great _he_ must be, how great he _had_ to be to fill those shoes? Why wouldn't those failures everywhere else, where he just wasn't good enough, be any different from failing like this?

 _Daruk could stand in molten lava for_ hours _,_ Bludo's voice recited in his thoughts. _How? Force of will! There was nothing soft or leisurely or lean about him!_

Another impact, and his teeth rattled in his head as the blow against Daruk's Protection sent sympathetic shocks throughout his physical body. The sirens were as loud as ever outside, and he thought maybe a guard was still shouting, and there was so much _light_ out there, what was going on?

 _If you don't shape up, kid, every Goron's going to get hurt! Do you get it? You don't_ get _to be a crybaby, or a quitter! People's lives depend on you!_ Everything _depends on you!_

His legs were shaking, and he could barely hold up his arms. For some reason, holding up his arms was the most important thing; he knew that if he lowered them, if he gave in to gravity and the pain in his back and shoulders then his will would be broken and Daruk's Protection would disappear and he'd be flattened in an instant. He couldn't let them down. His arms. But the other Gorons, too. Bludo. Zelda and Paya, even.

So, what, was he supposed to just stand here forever? There was no way to deal with the drones without the cannons, he was pretty sure. Maybe if they pushed a rockslide down on top of the whole mess of them, but it would take hours for the Gorons to get there. Could he last for hours? It had only been about a minute and he already felt himself being pushed to his absolute limit, his heart pounding in his chest so hard he thought it was going to burst, his vision swimming from dark to light and he didn't know which of those was worse than the other, but he knew that either one was a pretty bad sign. He could feel his will running out of him like molten rock out of a pail with a hole in it, knew that it would be empty soon. Was there anything past that? What would be left, when his will ran out? What would he even be like, in the split-second before he died?

 _I wish I wasn't doing all this alone_ , he thought. That's when he heard the ringing of the bell.

* * *

The sentries were made to fulfill a specific purpose, and that purpose did not require proper shielding or even any armor to speak of; each time one was struck by a thunder arrow loosed from Paya's Lizalfos-made bow, it was forced into rebooting, and crashed and shattered before it could re-engage its rotor. But, by Zelda's count, there were thirty-three sentries left, and Paya had less than twenty thunder arrows remaining.

She was not sure that destroying the sentries would stop the attack on Yunobo, but it was the only conclusion she could reasonably draw; the information that the sentries fed back to Rudania was topographical, so they must have been acting as its eyes. Without their targeting information, would it stop its attack? She didn't know—in fact, she had her doubts—but they had to try, because going directly after Rudania right now would have taken half a day.

With the goddess's strength held in her thoughts Zelda sent out her awareness, seeking through the mechanisms of the drones. There was no Malice in them, as she had seen before; they were working as nodes of the network that Rudania served as the hub of. She had been dealing with Guardians by purging them of the Malice of Ganon's influence, and resetting them back to their base function, but they were _fulfilling that function_ in what they were doing now.

 _The power can do more than banish Malice_.

The thought entered her mind unbidden, though it was in her own voice. She could not have guessed at its origin; she was immediately positive of its veracity. _How much?_ she asked herself, asked of the voice that had spoken out of turn, but no answer came. So, she would make one for her own.

Yunobo's pain radiated outward from the impact site, waves of anguish and exhaustion and loneliness so sharp that it cut through her reverie, jolting her out of her reflection. No force had leaked through his power and touched his body, but he was frightened, and he was _dying_. She could feel him wavering, unsteady even on the bedrock of his own mind, and knew that if she did not act then he would not last for very much longer.

The drones had a very simple power core; it fed into the surrounding systems through a feed that was not far removed from those of the Guardians, conceptually, but the scale and complexity of it was _much_ reduced. The actuators for the rotors that determined the loft produced in a given moment had an elegant degree of variability, but the logic controlling whether they should be running was wholly binary. The energy flowing through the drones was a river of light, so much like _her_ light, and she had only to reach out.

* * *

Paya, positioned high on the cliff, drew another thunder arrow taut. The supply would be exhausted momentarily, and there were too many sentries remaining. Could she bring them down with ice arrows?

All at once the rotors stopped, and the sound of the sentries' many sirens took on a strange quality as they plummeted to the earth and shattered like clay pots, their red eyes extinguished.

Robbed of the necessary targeting data, the attack from Vah Rudania halted in that moment, and the last of the projectiles crashed onto the top of Daruk's Protection perhaps a minute later. Yunobo did not respond, from inside of the barrier. The guards of the city ran to him, beat their fists against the shield's exterior, called to him, but Zelda could see with her god's eyes that he had fainted on his feet. As if being observed gave him the push he needed, Yunobo collapsed, the barrier following. He was left lying on a small circle of unmarked ground in the center of almost total destruction.

Zelda's first thought on a conscious level was to run to Yunobo, to heal him, but her instinct ran deeper, and she threw her awareness at Vah Rudania instead.

So: she saw when Vah Rudania, robbed of its targeting system, planted its feet into the sides of the mountain. She realized, too late, that though she had rid it of its eyes those eyes had still _seen her_ , in their final moments. She saw its head open like the blossoming of a flower, felt the capacitor of its weapon begin to charge, could _hear_ the gathering of energy that would obliterate Goron City as if it had never existed.

 _I can't stop it. Even with all the goddess's power I don't know if I can stop that blast, and even if I did Ganon's attack would follow thereafter and Goron City would be lost in either case. Could Naydra stop it, perhaps insulate critical parts by using ice? No, not fast enough. Naydra and Dinraal together probably wouldn't be strong enough to force it off-target._

A beam of light the color of blood, deeper than the burning heart of the mountain, painted the crest of Goron City with the promise of annihilation.

No. Not Naydra, not Dinraal, not Hylia. She didn't have the control necessary to stop this through finesse, and she didn't have the positioning to stop it through trickery, and she couldn't use her own brute force without losing in every way that mattered. There was only one other force available to her:

The goddess's voice rang out across Hyrule: " ** _MIPHA!_** "

* * *

The dead princess looked up from her vigil, tearing her eyes from the Hero, and looked to the north and to the west. The ghost fires around her were silent, and calm; they did not reflect any part of what she must have felt when she saw Vah Rudania aiming its weapon at Goron City.

"Ruta," she said, barely a whisper, and the Divine Beast answered with the sound of the trumpeting of the gods, its massive legs shifting under it. The light of its targeting laser swept away from Hyrule Castle, swinging across half the kingdom as Vah Ruta turned. It settled on Vah Rudania's torso, toward its hips. Mipha, whose connection with her Divine Beast had always been the finest of the Champions, adjusted the output of her weapon, estimating against how much armor Vah Rudania had remaining, having to feel out the question through intuition because she could not crunch the numbers in her head.

She never hesitated. If she had, the world would have been lost.

"I'm sorry, Daruk," she said, and gestured with her hand.

Vah Ruta fired.

* * *

The defenders of Goron City shielded their eyes from the blueness of the light as it lanced across the sky.

At their construction, the Divine Beasts had been designed to withstand direct attacks by Ganon—in comparison to that, withstanding their own weapons seemed small. Millenia removed, though, suffering from the damage of two battles with the Calamity and the weight of age and soil, things were different.

Vah Ruta's attack encompassed the back half of Vah Rudania's body, as well as a swathe of Death Mountain's side and a great deal of open air. The light was not turned up to its full intensity, and so the ground was not obliterated, but the earth beneath Vah Rudania boiled like water, and its legs slipped out from under it. Vah Rudania _squalled_ , the sound of a wounded dodongo, its footing lost in the moment it fired—and the killing light, so much brighter than the one it had been struck with, lanced harmlessly into the heavens.

Both pillars of blue dwindled to nothing simultaneously.

Liquid stone ran from Vah Rudania's legs as it pulled itself free of the molten muck, the armor plating on the back of its body flaking and cracked, pushed to the absolute limits of its endurance. Tentatively, like a wounded child, it tested its footing on the side of the mountain that had been gouged nearly clean by its fellow Divine Beast. It roared again, in defiance and in promise, and the sound was as terrible as it had been before. Then, quickly, it began to ascend the mountain, seeking the mouth of the volcano and the cover there provided.

* * *

How long had Yunobo been dreaming? Well, maybe he hadn't been _dreaming_ , but he'd _definitely_ been sleeping, and usually if he was sleeping then he was dreaming. He could always remember his dreams. Was he dreaming now? He must have been, because if he was just sleeping then the question wouldn't have occurred to him.

A light coolness was spreading through him. That was new. He could feel that in his body. Maybe he wasn't sleeping anymore, then. Maybe he was just awake. The coolness felt like he was awake, like it was pulling him out of sleep, up towards the light of real consciousness—but it was protecting him, too. Wasn't it? Insulating him from something. What was it—

 _Oh_ , he thought. _Wow, I would be in a lot of pain if I could feel it._

A delirious thought, almost nonsense, but also true. The coolness was between him and his pain, so that he knew it was there but it could not hurt him directly. Which meant he'd gotten hurt somehow. Did he remember? He did. He'd been using Daruk's Protection, taking the attack from Vah Rudania, and thinking about how he was going to die.

 _But I'm alive!_

"Yunobo!" the boss called, and Yunobo sat up.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Zelda said, putting pressure on his shoulders with her hands, failing to push him. "I'm not _nearly_ big enough to hold you down."

The light inside of Bludo's house—because that was where they were, and Yunobo was in the center of the floor while the boss was seated on the bed, and Paya stood watch at the door while Zelda tended to him with her healing magic—was soft, not harsh enough or bright enough to hurt his eyes. Which was good, because his eyes were just about the only thing that didn't seem like they should have been hurting.

"Please lie back down," Zelda said, and he stared at her, not quite processing the words. She huffed, scowling, when she saw his understanding wasn't keeping pace with her words. "You still have internal injuries I would like to attend to."

"Get back on the floor," Bludo said, and Yunobo was instantly horizontal again, his head nearly bouncing off the stone. "See? You just have to know how to talk to him."

"That's more than enough of that," Zelda said, and something in her tone made Bludo flinch. Yunobo wouldn't know what to make of that for a while. "Close your eyes and rest, this will take a little longer."

Well, he could certainly do that. He thought, when his lids fell shut, that he would fall asleep again, but he did not: instead the passing minutes allowed his mind to catch up with itself, for every part of him to come awake. Maybe it was the healing magic being applied to his head, or to his chest, but the longer he lay there the better he was able to think. To remember. To realize what he _didn't_ remember, had never gotten to see at all.

Without opening his eyes (because he did not want to be a bad patient) he said, "What happened?"

Zelda answered, "When Vah Rudania's drones reached the city, you drew their attention… and the Divine Beast's. You were using Daruk's Protection," and for some reason that name made him wince, "and withstood the impacts of all that fire and stone for several minutes. Paya and I were able to shut down the drones, and Vah Rudania was forced into retreat."

"It won't do anyone any good," Bludo's voice was gruff and surly from his corner, "least of all Yunobo, to not tell him all of it." A pause, as if waiting for Zelda to challenge him. When she did not: "Kid, when the drones were brought down, all the guards ran over to try to get through to you. You collapsed maintaining the Protection—good job at that, by the way, that was way more than I thought you could handle—but as soon as the drones were gone Vah Rudania apparently targeted Goron City with a weapon we didn't know it had. I couldn't say _exactly_ why," his tone suggesting that he had some ideas and that they involved people he was talking to, "but it was suddenly convinced it needed to show its whole hand and wipe us off the map. And… I don't know except what the guards tell me, but from what I can gather, these two have already brought the Divine Beast from Zora's Domain under their control. They stopped Vah Rudania's weapon with their own. Took a plug out of the mountain while they were at it. Then it retreated into the mouth of the volcano."

"How long ago was that, goro?" _How long have I been out,_ he wanted to ask.

"Six hours." Zelda lifted her hands away, then breathed a sigh of relief and exertion. "There. You can sit up, now." She had been tending to him for _six hours_? How much stamina could one person _have_? He sat up and looked at her face, trying to read her, to understand what she was feeling or expecting, but she just beamed at him. He felt his color rising. "Feeling better?"

He nodded, though he still lifted his arms experimentally, poked at his guts where he was pretty sure something had _popped_ before, wiggled his toes. "Yeah! Everything's in working order, goro. I don't know how I can thank you for helping me over and over!"

"Don't thank them yet." Yunobo looked over at Bludo, who sounded (and _looked_ ) glum and resentful. "The reason I had them do this here, kid, rather than at your house, was because I wanted to be the one to talk to you when you woke up." The boss got up from his bed, slowly, hand pressed to his back. "My medicine is starting to kick in, but I'm still going to be laid up for the better part of another day. But that doesn't even matter, now. Vah Rudania's been run off for a little while, but we don't know how deep in the mountain it's retreated or for how long. When it comes back, it's probably going to try to kill us again, and it's not going to give us a chance to fight back. Shooting you out of a cannon isn't going to cut it anymore." Bludo grinned wanly. "Well. I'm not good at speeches, so listen: I'm proud of you, kid. I'm not good at showing it sometimes, but I am. You're not Daruk, but every day you try to be, and you have all the courage someone could ask for." Yunobo wasn't sure why that made him feel upset, even resentful, but there it was. He just couldn't let Bludo see, and hoped Zelda and Paya would miss it. "These two tell me there's a monster riding Vah Rudania that's making it act that way, and to get things back to normal they have to board the Divine Beast and kill the monster. And they'll need your help."

Now he looked to Paya, who stood impassive at the door and looked away from his eyes. Then to Zelda, who rose to her feet and bowed very low to him. "Please. If you can bring us to the peak, I know we'll be able to handle the rest on our own."

He swallowed. This was fast. This was _so fast_. How was he supposed to be able to do something like that, like _this_ , without being able to prepare himself? Were they going right _now_? Of course, they were. "I-I don't know if I can—"

"You don't have a choice, kid." Slowly, painfully slowly, Bludo made his way across the room, walking not toward Yunobo but toward a chest he kept near his work desk. "It's not fair, but none of this is fair, none of it's ever _been_ fair. I guess I've been trying to prepare you for that. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job." The sound of his fingertips scraping against the stone of the chest as he ran them with reverence over the lid was audible throughout the entire room. "But you've got power, Yunobo. And when you have power, _real_ power, you don't get to make choices. Not about helping people. That's what being a Goron means." He opened the lid, but Yunobo was no longer looking at the boss, he was looking at Zelda, Zelda whose eyes were watering as she held her bow and who could not look directly at him. _She's afraid for me_ , he thought. _They all are._ "You have a soft heart, kid. That's not a bad thing, not really, but it makes all this harder than it should be. I wish you could have an easier life. You can't, but I wish you could."

Slow footsteps, nearly dragging across the room.

"You can't make a soft heart into a hard one, Yunobo. The stone knows we've tried. So, take your soft heart and help these two up the mountain. I can't help you anymore… but I can make sure you're armed."

Without being prompted, Yunobo reached out.

Bludo put the Boulder Breaker into his hands.

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ Making headway now, I hope, though it might also slow down a smidgen after this.

Death Mountain's pacing probably feels different from the pacing of the events in Zora's Domain; that's partially because I'm taking more liberties, here (as the differences between this story and the game continue to mount) and partially because there's less to do with Zelda's character as it relates to Death Mountain. I think that's why I've made Yunobo a _somewhat_ more pronounced perspective character than Sidon was; he needs to carry at least a bit more of the narrative weight here, because his role in the battle to come will be different from the prince's.

Please let me know if you have any concerns about the speed at which the story is moving, be that too fast _or_ too slow. Or if there's any particular part you especially liked, or that you thought could be better with some tweaking.

Thank you, as ever, for reading.


	25. Daruk

The weight of the Boulder Breaker pulled at Yunobo's shoulders, changing the experience of his every movement. The sun was high over Death Mountain, and as he looked back down at Goron City he realized he had never traveled this far from home before.

"Are you all right?" Zelda called from ahead, voice carrying on the wind, and he turned to wave an affirmative and started trotting to catch up. She and Paya had been leading this expedition most of the way, if he was honest. He'd walk with them until they spotted a nest of monsters, then they would go ahead and root the monsters out with explosives and ice magic, then he'd catch up again. There had been a _lot_ of monsters on the trip up here, so even though they needed him with them to give directions, he had been hanging back for a lot of the walk. Even now the two women were surrounded by the tell-tale evil-looking smoke that signified where a band of moblins had been only minutes before.

He had not held the Boulder Breaker in his hands since leaving Bludo's house.

"Goron weapons are _fascinating._ " Zelda was kneeling in the middle of the battlefield, examining her Cobble Crusher. Bludo had always told Yunobo that Hylians couldn't wield Goron weapons, but _she_ could—though, perhaps, not gracefully. "Their weight and lack of an edge seem like they would make them particularly suited to fighting enemies with armor plating, but at the same time it's almost as if they were made for _mining._ They're almost like hammers."

"They, uh, they basically _are_ hammers, goro." Stopping next to Zelda he squatted, pointing at the pitted edges in the metal of her weapon. "See these? Heavy impact. The boss doesn't like it much, but if any of the guards ever want to make a few extra rupees, goro, they'll find a mineral deposit and crack it open."

"So they _are_ used for mining, too! If they don't rely on the fineness of a cutting edge then I suppose the standards for maintenance must be very different, too." He nodded, and she grinned—not the way she had beamed at him back at the northern mine, but a different sort. She really liked to learn things, to figure out the way they worked. And, on top of that, she was really good at filling a silence or at getting him to talk. "The differences in our strengths inform so much about how differently we live and build, don't they?"

"Um." They were quick to react: that 'um' was as far as he got before Paya and Zelda both looked at him. They were good at keeping up the charade, but not when he surprised them. Well, he couldn't blame them; neither was he. "Listen. I wanted to ask the two of you a couple of things, before we get to the top of the mountain, goro." He held up his hands, anticipating a question. "Not about how to handle the Divine Beast or anything, goro! I figure you two must be experts. But, um."

Ah, man, this was hard. Way harder than it ought to be. And why _should_ it be this hard? What kind of Goron, what kind of _man_ was he if he couldn't work up the nerve to ask questions? He was regretting this already. He should pretend he'd never said anything. Maybe he could tell them he forgot what he was going to ask, and then—

"It's OK." Paya's voice was gentle; the sight of her standing against the backdrop of Death Mountain, cinders filling the space around her silver hair, was more calming than he would have thought. "Take your time. It's all right to be nervous about… important questions." Zelda nodded in turn.

All right. Fine. He took a second to breathe, to think of the way he was _supposed_ to be, found that didn't help at all. So, he'd be like a rock. Rocks didn't feel embarrassment. Didn't feel shame. Didn't feel fear. Be a rock! Rocks didn't ask questions, though. Not perfect.

Well, he'd push through it as best he could. "Those things that the boss said, back at his house, goro." He thought starting would make the rest easier, but it didn't. No rock rolling down a hill, he. "Bludo's a good Goron and he watches out for everyone, but… all that stuff, goro. Being proud of me, and how things weren't fair… he doesn't talk like that." Not ever. Not once. "The other things, about having power meaning I don't have a choice, he's never said those things either, but he's said things _like_ them, goro. But the others, no. So, I was wondering, goro. While I was out. Did you. Talk to him?"

Zelda and Paya looked at each other again, not a stolen glance to make sure the other was still there but a long, taking-in sort of look where they communicated something that he couldn't understand.

After a time they broke it off and Zelda said, "We did."

"Oh." He didn't know what he was expecting, really; well, no, he had been expecting almost exactly that answer. He could almost hear the entire thing, everything that must have been said. Zelda snapping at Bludo, Bludo being so sullen and surly, the bits and barbs that hadn't made sense to him at the time. If he thought about it, _really_ thought about it, he could probably reconstruct that conversation. "Sorry."

Zelda slowly got to her feet, lifting her Cobble Crusher off the ground and turning to put it against her back. Yunobo rose, too, hefting it higher and then tying it in place for her, positioning it so it wouldn't bang against her trident while she walked. "To tell you the truth, Yunobo, we didn't actually want you to come with us on this expedition."

"Eh? Why not, goro?"

"Because you had just been through something terrible! If I hadn't been there, your injuries would have taken weeks to heal, if they ever healed at all!" He cinched the knot in the rope, patting the weapon with his fingers, and she shifted her shoulders to test the tie. "Thank you, that's very good. Anyway, yes, we… _talked_ to Bludo. Extensively. He insisted that you had to come with us, because you are descended from Lord Daruk and it was your right and your duty to," she stopped, and he noticed that her fists were shaking just thinking about it, enough that he could see it through her gauntlets. "I swear, it's as if that man had never spoken to anyone who was willing to give him a piece of their mind."

That was probably true. "What did you _say_ to him, goro?" When Zelda didn't answer he looked to Paya, whose color rose before she turned away. "That bad, huh?"

"Yes. That bad. Because it's not fair to you, and… Yunobo, it's not my place to care about these things on your behalf, but I care a great deal about fairness. About being given the opportunity to make choices, even if they're not _really_ choices. We have to believe we're the arbiters of our own destinies, or we can't understand ourselves at all."

He couldn't imagine what sort of tongue-lashing would be up to the challenge of making Bludo consider his words more carefully, and was glad that he had been unconscious for it. But, still, something in the way Zelda said that, the way she was talking about the importance of choice and its intersection with destiny. He looked down at her hip, steeled himself.

"My other question is… who are you two, goro?" She tried not to show the sudden tension in her back, but it was visible even through the Flamebreaker Armor. Paya didn't betray herself quite so readily, but that was because her blush hadn't faded and she was just staring at the sky. "You're here to stop the Divine Beast, you've apparently already done it with at least one other, and I don't know many Hylians but the two of you are awfully young to have all these heavy experiences and thoughts on destiny, goro. You fight like nobody I've ever seen, you managed to stop all the sentries without using cannons, I'm pretty sure you're carrying a Sheikah Slate, you managed to shame the boss… it's a lot, goro. Not to mention that when you're around other people, Zelda, you do all the talking, and Paya barely says a word. You behave like a knight and their squire, almost." That made Paya's color rise even _more_ , so she was definitely still listening. "So, who are you, goro?"

"I'm not that young." Zelda turned on her heel to look up at him, and even from inside of her helmet the force of her eyes was like a slap across the face. "I'll have you know, I'm over a hundred years old."

"W-what? Wait, how long do Hylians live, goro? I knew you were older than me, but—" Something in her face made him stop, and he actually took a step back. He didn't know what he was feeling, though perhaps Prince Sidon could have told him.

"You know the story of the Champions and the Calamity. How the Champions of Hyrule fought against the Calamity and died, and the princess disappeared."

 _Golden hair sheikah slate magic light blue eyes can yell at the boss—holy gravel!_ He looked back at Paya and pointed at Zelda with one finger and mouthed "She's _that_ Zelda?" and Paya nodded and he thought his head was going to explode.

Zelda turned away from him, looking to the top of the mountain. "All of them died for me, Yunobo, because I failed them. The Hylian Champion, Link, is still fighting Ganon in the heart of Hyrule Castle. I don't know if you've heard that story, but it's true. I've seen it." She lifted her helmet, rubbed at her eyebrows with her fingertips. "We are gathering the Divine Beasts to aid the Hero, but… the Champions' spirits are trapped in their Divine Beasts. More than to aid the Hero, more than to defeat Ganon, I want to set them free."

He was finding he could process this more quickly and easily than he would have thought. "Wait, Lord Daruk's up there?"

"Yes. Ganon's power imprisoned him and the other Champions at the moment of their deaths. And." She breathed slowly, trying not to show weakness. "I have forgotten nearly all of my past life. I remember the Champions in fits and starts, as people and places help me to recall them. I remember Lord Daruk. He cared for me fiercely, though I could not see it. I did not love him well enough in return." Another pause. "This is why I didn't want you to come, Yunobo. Paya and I have seen and experienced and fought such horrible things on our journey, and none worse than the blights sitting on the Divine Beasts. The Champions died for me… but it was their choice. Maybe they would have said there was no other choice to be made, and maybe they would have been right, but… they still _made_ that choice. No one thrust it upon them. They were willing to die because they were courageous."

The question seemed obvious. He cleared his throat, sniffed, wiped at his eyes. "Did you, ah. Did you ever have a choice, goro?"

Another pause. "In my old life, I would have said no. Now… I hope so." She put her helmet back on. "You don't have to come with us, Yunobo. Daruk would be sick with anger if he knew you were being coerced to risk your life by someone you loved and trusted, instead of taking on that task for yourself. So… I would prefer it if you stayed here. I understand you can't return to the city, but we can make it the rest of the way up the mountain, and after Vah Rudania is tamed we will come back to you."

He found himself sputtering, not caring that he sounded ridiculous. "What, but, you—I'd just _stay_ here, goro? After all this? Daruk's up there! Everyone's counting on me! I can't just—I _have to_ help you!"

"If you help us," Zelda said, and now she was bowing to him, "I hope that it will be because it was your decision, and not anyone else's."

Zelda and Paya turned away from him, then, and continued up the trail to the peak. He was left watching them, his thoughts smashing into each other so that he couldn't hear any over the cacophony of the others, couldn't even figure out what he was feeling. The Boulder Breaker pulled at his shoulders.

* * *

The wave of heat coming out of the mouth of Death Mountain was a hand pushing at their torsos as Zelda and Paya came to the lip of the volcano. Zelda was in front, hand braced against one of the rocks to keep her balance, and Paya came up beside her.

Beneath them Vah Rudania rested, legs settled deep in the roiling magma pool. The red light of the mountain's heart made it look almost serene, creating an illusion that the Divine Beast gently breathed as it slept. It was not sleeping, they knew, and would soon be on the move again. Zelda was not holding the power, trying to avoid detection by the Blight until the last moment, but even from hundreds of meters up they could feel the stirring of the mighty shadow. It waited for them.

They looked at each other. Nodded. Leaped together into the open air, the heat pushing up at them, and then opened their paragliders to begin their long trip down.

* * *

Zelda pulled hard on one side of her paraglider, forcing the nose down into a controlled descent. The updraft was _horrendous_ , threatening to tear the handles from her grip, and she could barely afford to glance at Paya to make sure they were still at the same level. And, yes, Paya was still in control, her face a neutral mask of concentration as the cords in her neck stood out with the effort of holding steady.

Vah Rudania was a silhouette against the light of the magma. She could see that the armor on its entire back half was cracked, stressed nearly to the point of shattering. _Well. Good thing its cannon isn't in its tail_. She wanted to be glib, it would be ridiculous to give it more thought, but she also felt a pang, looking at it. Ten thousand years it had spent whole, ready to divulge so many secrets, and she had as good as destroyed it because she couldn't think of a better way to deal with it. How much longer would it last in that state? Decades? Years? Less? And when it crumbled, she would be the one to blame.

The air shifted, a pressure at her ears like the beating of a mighty heart. The Blight was calling to her; it did not know where she was, she was hiding herself and Paya well enough to be sure of that, but that she was _there_ it was sure. The Fireblight. Ganon.

Then, beneath that, far deeper than a physical sensation, she felt a mighty upheaval—the straining of a continent against the chains that would seek to bind it. Daruk.

The Fireblight would be ready as soon as they set foot on Vah Rudania. It would not give them time to join with Daruk—it would be on the attack instantly. Paya would not be able to hold it off by herself, not in truth. If she used more of the goddess's power, she could restrain it until the moment was right, but that much strength would bring the Calamity's wrath down on them, and that _would_ cause a full eruption of Death Mountain. She could not begin to imagine the catastrophe. So. It had to be a surprise.

"Paya!" The other woman did not look to her, but she could tell Paya heard her because of how she reacted when Zelda continued: "I'm dropping now!"

"WHAT?!" Paya's answer was nearly a shriek. "Zelda, please, I don't know what you're thinking, but—"

"Trust me," Zelda shouted over the wind. "Maintain your current rate of descent! If it looks like something is going wrong, I'll trust you to handle the changing situation! But for right now, I need to get the drop on Ganon, and this is the only way!"

"Please, wait a second! Zelda! _Zelda!_ "

She collapsed her paraglider, and as gravity pulled her into freefall she grabbed hold of the power. The ringing of a bell filled the heart of the mountain, red light drowned in gold, and beneath her the Fireblight stirred.

* * *

Gorons were born of the stone. Daruk could have told that to anyone who asked, but he _believed_ it, too. The Zora were water, the Hylians were soil, the Gerudo were sand, the Rito were wind, and the children of the forest… well, that explained itself, didn't it? But the Gorons were stone. Solid. Stolid. Powerful. Patient. That was the Gorons.

When he had died, Daruk had never lost consciousness. He suspected that had been true of all the Champions, but for him it was a fact: one moment he'd been bleeding out on the floor, Ganon's ridiculous monster standing over him with that gaudy axe, and the next moment he'd been here, in this vast dark place, with chains holding him down against a firmament colder and harder than any rock he'd ever seen. And, sure, maybe they hadn't been real chains, that was just how his mind interpreted them. And he had to admit that at first, he'd struggled something fierce, pulling against his bonds so hard that if they _had_ been chains he would have broken them into itty bitty pieces.

But when he realized that wasn't going to work, that he was really and _truly_ trapped, he'd stopped pulling and he'd started waiting. Nobody liked to talk about it much, because it was easier to show off to the other peoples if you were loud and strong and knew it and let _them_ know it, but the foremost of Goron virtues wasn't strength; it was patience. So, he waited. And he waited. And he waited.

The other Champions were out there, too. He could feel them, very distant, trapped like he was. He couldn't reach out to them, couldn't call out so they could hear him, couldn't tell them it would be all right and to hang on. He hoped they knew anyway. He wasn't the most sensitive of the Champions—he was probably the least—so it was a pretty good bet that they could feel the same absence he did. Him, Mipha, Revali, Urbosa, they were all bound like this. But not Link. Not Zelda.

And then, one day, after a long, long, _long_ time waiting, Mipha's chains snapped. Not all at once; first there was a light, so bright he could see it all the way from where he was, and then a sound like a bell ringing. _Then_ the chains snapped, and he could see their frayed ends stretching off into infinity as the Calamity threw an oversized tantrum. But the point was, Mipha was _free_. He could _feel_ that she was free, standing atop the mountain, watching… something. Probably the little guy, knowing her.

But his patience was paying off. Even if he was the very last, it would just be a matter of time. So, he waited. But, well, even rocks could get a little impatient, right? A little _fidgety_. He could feel his time coming to an end, and his anticipation set his blood on fire.

In the scheme of things, he wasn't waiting much longer before a light broke through the darkness above him, all gold and fire and warmth, and he could feel _her_ there, too. She was different somehow, brighter, less weighed down, but it was Zelda.

Her power reached out to him, and he felt so many bindings break. Not the heaviest, not the worst of them, he was still held fast—but he could _move_ , just a little. He could reach out with his hand, seeking that brilliance.

"Daruk!" She even sounded different. Still a kid, but so much more level. She'd been through a lot. "Daruk, reach for me!"

In the darkness he grinned; as if she even had to ask.

* * *

The goddess's power blossomed in the air above Vah Rudania, too close, falling too fast, to bring the wrath of the Divine Beast against it. The darkness driving that beast was reduced to a single option; it heaved, and the fire beneath Vah Rudania roared to life, and the world quaked beneath it.

Power gathered, and darkness, and fire, a maelstrom of force and malevolence that would hurt the eye to look at. The entrances of Vah Rudania remained open; the darkness invited the goddess in, knowing not fear, nor even caution. It grew, and grew, and grew, the power gathering into a mass that hissed and bubbled and spat, a ball of Malice whose size would have given a Hinox pause.

Cloven hooves smashed into the floor, splintering the stone beneath legs that would have served as pillars in blasphemous temples. Arms reached out, thick-muscled, burning with Malice, hands dense like carved boulders. When the thing stood tall it was no less massive, its frame rectangular and powerful as if mocking a Goron's, and though its arms and legs were armored its torso was bare, inviting a blade, challenging its attackers.

It raised its head, and into the armored plating of its mask were cut two eyes. The field of fire that served as its hair flowed down over its wide shoulders, and it had no horns; only two small, triangular ears, between which was nestled a crown of shadows that blinded the eye, defying sight.

The goddess's power descended.

Vah Rudania shook at the impact as the figure landed on their feet, sinking into a squat before rising to their full height. The princess, yes, but more than she; there was a flashing to any eye that looked, so that she and another figure were occupying the same space, and this other figure was mountainous, thick-limbed, wide-grinning, eyes burning with a long-held anticipation. The Fireblight knew that figure; did it know that this was the dead's grudge, finding form against it?

The light-enshrouded figure pointed at the darkness-enshrouded beast, and the Fireblight flinched.

"All right, gruesome!" Daruk's shout filled the Divine Beast, the air around it, the whole of the volcano.

The Fireblight bared its weapon, an enormous axe of burning blue light materializing at the end of its arm. The Champion reached over his shoulder, easily hoisting the Cobble Crusher in one hand.

" _Round two!_ "

The Fireblight roared.

* * *

Yunobo nearly lost his footing as the mountainside heaved under him. Pinwheeling his arms to keep his balance, he found himself turning, trying to look up at the summit. He hadn't moved from the spot where Zelda and Paya had left him. He hadn't _wanted_ to move.

Well. No. He had wanted to move. He'd wanted to go up there and help them, or else go back down the mountain and—hide, maybe? Just keep going, on past Goron City, out into the lowlands, never to return? He could carry his shame with him and hide from other Gorons, maybe change his name. Live a peaceful life. It sounded better, at least, than standing still on the mountain, torn between what he _should_ be doing versus what he should… _also_ … be doing.

Smoke bellowed from the mouth of Death Mountain, and with that smoke a _roar_. He'd heard Vah Rudania's voice more times than he could count, and whatever was making this sound now… it wasn't as big as Rudania, but he understood on a deep, almost reflexive level that it was actually worse. There was something behind that sound, a Malice, that made him suddenly remember dreams from when he'd been small and afraid of being pulled underground and not being able to get out. That was what that roar sounded like: the thing that would pull him underground.

Zelda was up there, and so was Paya, and they said Daruk was there, too. Paya was _wild_ with a sword, and Zelda was probably getting ready to fight the Calamity itself, and Daruk was… well, he was Daruk! If the three of them worked together, what chance did _any_ monster have? None. None, pretty much.

But the roar was long and loud and the mountainside continued to shake and Yunobo had this image in his head, all of a sudden, of Zelda and Paya and Daruk sinking into the ground. For some reason he could barely see Daruk, but he could see Paya clawing desperately at the ground, panic in her eyes before the stone rose to cover her. Zelda looked back at him, and she was bathed in golden light, and she reached out to _him_ , extending her hand, and he thought _if I try to help I will be dragged down too,_ and the golden light was swallowed up by the dark.

If he'd had anything on his stomach he would have thrown it up. He wasn't prepared for that kind of thing, but it was _true_ , too, wasn't it? Why wasn't he up there now? Because he was scared?

"If I go up there, I might get in the way! Never mind them dying because I'm not helping, goro, they might die because I make a mistake!"

Instantly, the rebuttal came unbidden from his own mouth: "What, I think I can _really_ get in the way? If worse comes to worst I'll huddle up in a corner with Daruk's Protection, goro!"

"I'm scared because I don't know how not to be! That's not wrong!"

" _That's not an excuse, goro!_ What would Bludo s—"

" ** _I DON'T CARE WHAT BLUDO WOULD SAY!_** "

The rumbling of the mountain faded to a deep, pensive hum. Yunobo's eyes returned to the peak.

"I don't care if it's… if it's what a Goron should be doing. If it's manly, goro. If it's what people expect of me. I can't leave them up there. They're my friends, and I haven't known them very long but… but I can't leave my friends up there, goro. Zelda wanted to make sure it was my choice, for my reasons, but I don't care about the reasons, or the choice. I just care about them."

Up, he ran.

* * *

Daruk swung in a low horizontal sweep and the Fireblight moved to block; too slow, not braced solidly enough, unable to turn aside the blow that smashed into its diaphragm, bending its torso like a sack of sand before it went flying, smashing into one of the walls that marked the boundaries of Vah Rudania's back.

No hesitation, no planning; Daruk charged. The Fireblight struggled to its feet, the fire of its eyes flaring so that the air around it grew darker. It hurled the Malice at him, a wave of decay.

The wave crashed upon Daruk's Protection and broke, barely making the surface of the barrier flash. Daruk allowed himself a small, tight smile: yeah, this was _worlds_ better than fighting this creep unarmed had been. It was big enough to still put up a fight, but nothing like what he'd dealt with before. When he got within striking distance he stepped in hard with his left foot, pushing off with his right, rotating from his hips (the entire body was too small, too thin, almost sickly, but the legs were the right length and that could make up for a lot) as he swung.

The Cobble Crusher smashed into the Fireblight's barrier. The impact sent shockwaves up the metal of the weapon, he could _hear_ it straining, and his hands nearly went numb as his shoulders threatened to seize.

"Oh, right, I forgot you're a thief on top of everything else. You haven't got even an ounce of pride, eh?"

The Fireblight did not answer. The barrier winked out and Ganon dissolved into strings of blue light that twisted and danced through the air. If it was moving like that, it was going to be a short-range leap, which meant—

He threw up his barrier as the Fireblight reappeared and screamed, launching a fireball nearly the size of its own body. He turned to face it, fists out, and saw that it was not _just_ fire: something swam in the fire, some dark shape that gave the impression of watchfulness, and at the last second he realized it was an eye, an incarnation of the Malice itself. He clenched his teeth, squeezed his shoulder blades together, and centered himself.

* * *

The force of the fireball striking Daruk's Protection and exploding was so immense that it tore Paya's paraglider from the grip of her right hand. She plummeted the last six meters, letting go of the paraglider at the last second so that she could hit the surface of Vah Rudania with a loose roll, before collecting herself. Automatically she grabbed her paraglider, folded it, returned it to its place on her back. Then she allowed herself to turn back to the battle.

The effect of seeing Daruk and Zelda in the same space was bizarre—the princess had been taller than Mipha, and their limbs had different proportions, but they'd still been _of a size_. Daruk was nearly twice Zelda's height and must have been over a dozen times her mass, and the effect was only barely mitigated by how much stouter Zelda looked in the Flamebreaker armor. She was not even sure whether their weapon was being held in Zelda's hand or in Daruk's; it was as if its position depended on how she was seeing them in that moment, like reality itself was flitting back and forth.

Compared to Mipha, Daruk's style lacked utterly in subtlety but not in elegance: every movement was sure and practiced and fluid, the result of years of focused practice, but there were no such things as feints or parries or even _avoidance_ anywhere in the Goron's huge, all-or-nothing swings. His blows were so crushing that the Fireblight was forced to engage him on his terms, so the two of them stood there, legs planted, swinging weapons larger than Hylians with enough force to topple buildings. Every time they clashed the sound was like the largest anvil in the world, and above it all Daruk was _laughing_.

"Come on! Is that all you've got? Where are the fire bats? The light beams? Has the mighty Daruk already got you on the ropes? Haven't you been eating your gravel?"

The Fireblight's eyes flared and its hair stood nearly on end, and then it reared back, grasping its enormous axe hand with its free arm. Daruk's swing caught it in the ribs, and there was a _crunch_ and a spurt of fire and Malice as its ribs broke and the bone tore at its flesh—but it did not move. With an effort that Paya could not begin to imagine it re-centered its stance, shifted its shoulders, and brought its axe down.

The blue blade skidded against the surface of Daruk's Protection. The loss of its intended momentum made the blade bounce, throwing the Fireblight off-balance as Daruk spun, bringing around the Cobble Crusher in a whirlwind's arc. The Fireblight threw up its shield, but it seemed that the Champion had predicted this: in the brief moment that she saw his face, Daruk was grinning.

The Cobble Crusher slammed into the shield, shivered, and then burst into a hail of burning shards that filled the air before fading to cinders.

Paya was already running while Daruk was staring at his hands and shouting, "Waddya mean they gave you a _used_ one? Don't people take care of their _tools_ anymore?"

She ran low to the ground, and the goddess-blessed sword and shield were in her hands when the Fireblight's barrier came down. Too focused on Zelda, on Daruk, it didn't know she was there until her sword had sunk four times into the flesh of its calves and thighs. It screamed, and stomped, and she retreated and circled.

The Waterblight had taught her that shallow cuts would do precious little, but puncturing its flesh would still make the manifestation of Ganon stagger. Sidon had managed it, and so had Mipha. In theory she should be able to do the same.

That thought was folly, and she knew that in an indirect way as the monster wheeled on her, a shadow that made lynels seem tame and small in comparison. She brought her shield up, crouching behind it to mask that her position was shifting to dash away. Later she would reflect that this was the only reason she survived what came next.

It threw the Malice at her, as the Waterblight had, but it did not attack her as if she were an insect to be brushed away: it struck at her as if she were a Champion. She felt it coming as all living things would feel Ganon's approach, and she ducked behind her shield. There was an eruption there, an explosion of force and heat and pain, and the blow on Vah Ruta had been so heavy that it had thrown her bodily but this, _this_ , this poured around the edges of her shield and grabbed hold of her thoughts like a cat snatching a butterfly out of the air.

Fire, then, and loneliness, and pain like she had never been able to imagine in her entire life, deeper than physical agony. Her mind was a room, carefully organized, and the Malice was a burning beast that rampaged through it, destroying everything it touched, putting to the torch her sense of self, her ability to focus. There was a core of the golden strength that Zelda had given her all those weeks ago, held like a precious jewel, something to be protected. Did it want that? No. No, it was reaching for her memories, for her thoughts of her grandmother, of her village, of her princess—

"NO!" She grabbed hold of the golden power for herself, that smallest sliver of it, felt it resonating with the weapon and the shield that she held. "Get _out!_ "

It was gone, as if it had never been there, leaving her thoughts clean and empty of its influence so that she came crashing back to her bodily awareness, and instantly she launched herself to the side, landing on her shoulder as the axe sank deep into the floor where she had been crouching a moment before. She was on her feet instantly, sword held out, tip pointed constantly at the face of the monster whose eyes were tracking her every movement.

That was the first moment she realized how badly Ganon, the Calamity, wanted her. Not her, the guardian of the princess, but her, Paya, in particular.

Daruk's massive arms wrapped around the Fireblight's torso, squeezing out a fresh torrent of fire and blood and Malice from the wound in its side, and Ganon's roar was so pained that Paya had to fight the urge to cover her ears as Daruk twisted and bodily threw it across the arena. It landed with a crash, limbs flailing, pain driving it temporarily to distraction.

Paya stepped close to Daruk, sword and shield in an orthodox position again.

"You OK, kid?" Daruk's voice was deep, thundering… and comforting, in a way that she'd never thought of a man's voice, not even Dorian's. He sounded like he knew things would be all right.

"I'll be fine. I'm still ready to fight."

"Dunno about that." She looked up at him, but he was still staring at the Fireblight, and there was strain in his voice even though his grin hadn't shifted. "I'm gonna be honest: I'm a better fighter than that thing is, but without a weapon I couldn't kill it even a hundred years ago, when it was a _lot_ punier. How confident are you that you can kill it with your knife there?" She shook her head, and he just nodded. "Yeah, thought not. Easy to see you're a real fighter, but if we're going to put that thing down we'll need to overwhelm it. If you want to turn tail, now's the time."

The Fireblight got to its feet, and she could see the wound in its side closing as it turned slowly, deliberately, to face them. She sank into an offensive stance. "I won't run."

"Yeah. Yeah, all right. We'll make it work. I'll see if I can pin it, then you open its throat. We'll just need to get an opportunity."

Until that moment the Fireblight had not been fighting in truth; that was the only reason Paya could interpret the way that it exploded into flames, jets of fire that snaked through the air like images of dragons spewing Malice from their mouths. They were everywhere, each as large around as the Blight itself, and they wheeled and twisted skyward, the roar of the fires deafening before they plunged toward Paya and the dead Champion. For once, she had no idea what to do.

Then Daruk was in front of her, and his Protection was thrown up in a crystalline sphere. The fire smashed into it from a dozen angles, obscuring the rest of the world in inferno, and the noise was so all-consuming she couldn't hear the words of encouragement that Daruk was trying to shout to her. Within the barrier she stood with Daruk, and without the barrier there was light, and heat, and noise, as if the world had ended.

Then darkness broke the uniformity of the light as the Blight crashed into the barrier. She screamed out of reflex as its axe came smashing down, over and over, the force of the rebound being turned into a more incessant _chop_ , the blade of its weapon showing no strain as its hooves scrabbled and kicked with force that made the stone underneath them splinter and shift. The fire faded but Ganon was _worse_ , furious, berserk, squealing and howling in rage and fury and hate so deep that she wouldn't have been able to fathom it except that it had touched her mind a minute before.

"Kid," Daruk shouted as Ganon pounded its fist on the red light, alternating blows between its axe and its hand with wild swings that had it rotating its entire torso non-stop, "you still with me?"

"Y-y-yes!"

"Good! Now, listen. I can keep this thing off us for a while, but eventually it _will_ break through." Did she imagine that there was a crack in the surface of the shield, where its axe kept striking, over and over, with such precision? "Sooner rather than later, probably. The only thing I can do here is control _when_ the shield goes down. So, here's what we're going to do: I'm going to count off the blows it does with its fist. Just before the tenth one lands I'm going to drop the shield. It's going to hit me, but I don't want you losing your nerve when that happens, OK? It's going to be ugly, but if I understand what Zelda's told me then Mipha's power will keep us safe for that one blow. I'm going to use that chance to pin it. You be ready to open it up. Got it?"

"Yes!" She was not imagining the crack under its axe, nor the one under its fist. In another few minutes it would be through. What would it look like, when its fist came through, and plowed into the side of Daruk's—Zelda's—head? Would the armor crumple? How much more terrible than the flash of the bombs, and sailing through the air? Oh, she could not take it. Impossible. "Yes! I'll be ready!"

"Ha! Spoken like a true Goron!" He turned his attention back to the Fireblight, which was screaming its fury into his face through the thinness of the barrier. "All right. I'm gonna start counting. Remember, I'm dropping on ten. One, two," and the rhythm of the fist was like the rhythm of a heartbeat, she could hear it; water dripping after rainfall, ripples in a pool, her grandmother clapping her hands to teach her how to place her feet, "three, four, five—" He missed a beat, she looked up, saw that he was also looking up. "Hold that thought."

By an exertion she did not fully understand, Daruk _heaved_ against the interior of the Protection, rotating it as he stepped carefully across the floor. She stepped quickly to stay next to him, not sure if she would simply pass through the inner side of the barrier or not, and only looked up again when he stopped moving. "What are you—?"

Above and behind the Fireblight, at the very lip of the cliff above them, so small it was barely visible, a red light was falling. It shone against the brightness of the sky, a ruby spinning in the air.

And, if she listened very, very carefully, she could hear its panicked screaming.

* * *

Yunobo hadn't really meant to put up Daruk's Protection as soon as he'd jumped; that had just sort of happened, like when you close your eyes when something is about to collide with your face. His whole body was about to collide with molten lava, so that made sense.

Really, it wasn't any different than being fired out of a cannon, except that in those cases Bludo had been the one determining trajectory and making sure he wouldn't miss. He'd had to eyeball this, based on his knowledge of how much faster his downward acceleration was; his only experience that would help him out was his experience falling. And he was an expert at falling, really, so it should be fine!

And, well, he couldn't force himself to be ashamed of the screaming. Who wouldn't scream, really?

So, he fell, blind, rolled into a ball, spinning, unable to tell up from down or left from right, and every second he was falling faster. He didn't know how far he'd have to fall for Daruk's Protection to give out, but he was pretty sure this wasn't it. Though if he hit the lava and ended up plunging down into it, too far away to reach any of the walls, it wouldn't matter anyway. So! Good. He'd decided on a course of action and taken it. No point worrying about it now.

Still screaming, though.

Just as he became reasonably sure that he had been falling for slightly too long, that after slightly too _longer_ he would be falling out of the frying pan and into the fire (he wished that was funnier to him), he came to a sudden, noisy, bone-crunching stop. He could _feel_ his brain slamming against the inside of his skull; yep, he'd been traveling faster than Bludo had ever launched him out of a cannon. Whatever he hit was so solid that he bounced off it but had enough give that he crashed onto the ground a few meters away instead of ricocheting off and being flung into the lava anyway.

He hit the ground and Daruk's Protection popped out of existence. Yep. Still in one piece. Whatever that crunching sound had been, it hadn't been _his_ bones.

 _What if it was somebody else's bones!?_

He immediately leaped to his feet and his vision went black from the blood rushing out of (or to, he forgot which caused it) his head but he still looked around, eyes wide.

"Oh. Maybe I _did_ hit my head, goro."

He was standing on the back of Vah Rudania, which he'd never done before. Paya was staring at him with a look of perfect open-mouthed shock—which, good, he hadn't hit _her_ —but what really got him was when he looked at Zelda. He was pretty sure he had a concussion, but if he was seeing Zelda and Daruk standing in the same place then it must have been a _bad_ one. OK. Well. He was pretty sure he hadn't hit Paya or Zelda, and Daruk was already dead. So.

Then he looked over to the left and saw a monster the size of his own house, spewing fire and darkness out of wounds that would have killed _any_ Goron, its pain and fury driving it to beat its limbs against the stone of Vah Rudania, pounding it into finer and finer gravel with every impact. Its entire torso was caved in, nearly crushed flat, and it looked like it was trying to roar but could not.

"Oh. The underground thing. Yep, goro, I see. Daruk!" Zelda looked up, or Daruk did. Whichever. Yunobo unslung the Boulder Break from his back, hefted it, and tossed it through the air. "Catch!"

With one hand and perfect confidence they reached out, catching hold of the Boulder Breaker's grip with a familiarity so profound it bordered on intimacy. That was nice. That was very nice.

Yunobo then gladly fainted.

* * *

"Cover the kid!" Before the words were even out of Daruk's mouth, the Sheikah girl had already crossed the distance to the Goron youth—and he was a good, honest-looking kid, never mind how out of his mind he'd have to be to jump down here just to deliver a weapon—leaving Daruk holding his old friend in his hands. Oh, it felt exactly the way he remembered it. Exquisitely balanced, absurdly heavy, utterly impractical for anyone who wasn't as strong as him; it was perfect.

 _Tiny princess,_ he thought, _get ready._

 _Are you sure about this?_

Her reply wasn't disbelieving, exactly, but that she felt the need to ask the question was perfectly fair. Even now the Fireblight was getting to its feet, pounding at its chest and back with its forearms as if beating its torso back into shape and _succeeding_. Ganon saw him, saw the weapon he held in his hand, and it must have recognized genuine quality Goron craftsmanship because it instantly put up its barrier, a blood-red jewel that was nearly opaque in the light of the volcano.

"'Course I'm sure," he said out loud, because of course she could hear that too. "That thing's shield is no slouch, but it's just a pale imitation of the original. Now I'm going to show you why!" Way down deep, beneath the surface of the place that Daruk had been allowed to occupy, he felt Zelda grab hold of something way, way bigger than he was.

Four steps back, and then he began to run. He could sprint like no other Goron who'd ever lived, and he could feel the power of that momentum transferring to the Boulder Breaker as he began to swing. Momentum carried him forward and spun him around, and he always kept his eyes on his target, the pull of the Boulder Breaker as it sped up pushed his grip to its limit, he could feel the heat building up as it blazed through the air. Ganon's eye wasn't on _him_ , it as on the _weapon_ , and that was satisfying on two levels: first, because it meant it knew what was coming, and second, because it was too stupid to realize that the weapon was only as destructive as the spirit that drove it.

He was a cyclone, and on the last spin he brought the Boulder Breaker up in an overhanded chop.

The Fireblight's shield shattered, disappearing into spinning shards of light. The Boulder Breaker came down on top of the monster's head, cracking the armored mask in half, and didn't stop until it smashed into the floor with an impact that shook Vah Rudania and the mountain it stood in.

Then the world was drowned in the chiming of a bell.

* * *

After nearly two hours of pained walking, his back protesting every step, Bludo stood at the top of the hill overlooking Goron City. Not for the first time, he was looking at the peak of Death Mountain.

For a long, long time he stood there, wondering, waiting, unmoving.

He did not understand what it meant when Death Mountain shone with golden light, like a beacon calling out to the gods, or why that light brought tears unbidden to his eyes.

Well. No one else could see. Didn't really matter, then.

* * *

Zelda came back to herself, collapsing to her knees. The Fireblight Ganon was already dissolving in front of her; there was nearly nothing left of it.

 _Ganon is coming_ , she said, or tried to say, because of course the Calamity was coming now.

"Hold on to something!" Daruk's voice echoed from everywhere on Vah Rudania. "I know the drill. Don't worry, the mighty Daruk isn't letting anything happen to any of us!"

Without thinking, without searching for handholds, Zelda sprinted toward Paya and Yunobo. Paya was doing her best to hold the unconscious Goron in place, but he weighed so much that when Vah Rudania shifted it would be impossible.

 _It doesn't matter. You've already used the power. Put it to work_.

She was shining when she threw one arm around Paya and the other on top of Yunobo, enshrouding all three of them in the goddess's power, holding them fast as Vah Rudania heaved beneath them. Her goddess awareness pushed out, she could feel Paya's sustained panic, her shivering as the Divine Beast began to scale the interior of the volcano—so that Zelda's power was holding them in place against a perfectly smooth, perfectly vertical surface.

"Aw, what'd you do to Vah Rudania? Its legs are _all_ busted, it can barely move!" She didn't answer; there would be time for answers later. Instead she tore her awareness away from Paya, away from Yunobo, away from Death Mountain entire, and threw it outward, toward Hyrule Castle, feeling for the unleashed power of the Calamity as its fury was made manifest.

Vah Rudania crested the side of the volcano, hoisting itself atop the massive rocks that ringed the mountain's peak, planted its feet to give itself a stable firing platform, and its head opened like a blossoming flower. Its capacitors charged in moments, its targeting laser flashing out, seeking—

"Uh… tiny princess."

She did not answer. For one brief, wild moment, she considered throwing the fullness of her awareness at the castle itself.

The sky was clear, or as clear as it ever got on Death Mountain.

When Daruk continued, he was equal parts confused and disappointed. "What's going on?"

"I… I wish I knew."

* * *

The power of the goddess echoed across the being of the Calamity, and in the depths of Hyrule Castle it screamed in pain and an ever-growing fury. The sheer force of its roar drove the Hero back, sword held up defensively, and that was the chance that it needed.

It gathered its power, standing at the center of a maelstrom of darkness as the Malice that suffused that chamber was drawn into it. The air crackled, filling the arena with thunder as Ganon's eyes flashed red and gold and it opened its mouth to roar its hatred.

Three times it had done this; three times it had released its fury in the midst of their battle, hurling burning, smothering death across the continent as if it were tossing a ball. Three times its fury had been thrown at the presence of the goddess, and even if it had not killed her then three times had Hyrule shattered under its ministrations. Three times; that is how many times it took the Hero to learn.

The Calamity had turned its face skyward, mouth wide open, ready to vomit its hate, when the Master Sword plunged into its throat. The sound of the sword's power ringing out was louder than its choked agony, grander than the spewing fire and Malice exploding from its neck in a torrent that parted around the Hero, destroying the walls behind him.

Link planted his feet on the Calamity's shoulders, shifted his grip, and pulled _up_ with the blade of the sword. The Calamity's head was pulled even further back as he opened it up from the base of its throat to its chin, kicking off of its head and pulling the sword free as he jumped over it, behind it.

The Hero landed on the floor behind Ganon as the full force of its power was released in a hellish storm spewing from its wounded throat. The walls of that place had held Ganon's fury for a century of centuries, but against the beast's restored strength they were reduced to powder, exposing the millions of tons of earth that stood behind them. That rush of force came back, flooding the chamber in burning devastation, and only the Hero stood in the midst of it, the light of his soul and the strength of the sword allowing him to move, to hold, to fight on.

Link turned and the sword flashed and the Calamity's ankles collapsed as its tendons were cut, and it could not even scream for the force storm that was now blasting power upward, stripping the opening of the chamber of its lights and symbols, spewing out into the throne room and blasting every stone clear of the sanctum. The Hero barely seemed to move his arm, slicing through more tendon and muscle, and the Calamity fell to its knees and then onto its arms.

The maelstrom howled around him and the Hero moved unhindered, his feet tapping a silent rhythm against powdered stone as he rounded the Calamity, the Master Sword singing, and Ganon fell as its right arm was left useless. It wouldn't heal quickly enough to continue the fight, not this time.

The Hero and the Calamity locked eyes, as they had done countless times before. The Hero breathed in, lifting the Master Sword in his hands, preparing to drive it home in another killing stroke.

"Fool," the Calamity bubbled, its voice strained and mocking and hateful, "all of them are already d—"

Link stabbed Ganon through its forehead. He held the Master Sword there as the beast thrashed, as the maelstrom of its power faded to nothing and less than nothing, as its adherence to this body wavered. The light of the sword grew dim, barely visible, and still he held it.

Finally, Ganon's body began to burn. The Hero pulled free the sword. He stepped away from the carcass, out of which burning darkness was already rising with renewed hate. He took his position, where he knew that he would see if it tried to flee, where he would be ready when it rose again. Where he could see it gathering the power to break him.

He sank to one knee. His limbs were shaking. He held onto the sword, refusing to fall.

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ Thank you for being patient! This one would have been up a few days earlier, but there was some work that needed my attention. Please forgive me for the delay.

My classes are starting back up soon, but I will do my utmost to keep a consistent schedule.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I have a lot of fun writing Yunobo, and hope that he is fun to read. I _also_ have a lot of fun writing Link; maybe I should do more of that, huh? Maybe the next couple of chapters should have a bigger focus on him? And his relationship with Zelda in particular?

Thank you, always, for reading.


	26. A Premonition

Yunobo had been spending a lot of time waking up lately. Hopefully this wasn't a pattern that would be repeated in his day-to-day. Well, at least it was warm, this time. Not, like, burning hot warm—it was pretty much always that—but the kind of warm where he could feel the sunshine on him, even with his eyes closed. Sunshine! What a weird thought.

"I think he's coming to!" Zelda's voice, right above his head. He opened his eyes; leaning over him was Zelda, and standing on his other side was Paya, and filling up the space behind and above the two of them, looming like the mountain itself from down past his feet, was Daruk. Yunobo's eyes kind of swung back and forth, like he was dizzy, but they settled on Daruk: huge grin, bushy beard, like the statue come to life… except that he was surrounded by ghost fires. Yunobo had never seen a ghost before, but he'd heard stories and knew that those undying blue embers could be only one thing.

 _OK. That's three. There were three figures before, too. But Zelda and Daruk were one. Wasn't there a monster? THE MONSTER!_

Yunobo leaped to his feet, nearly knocking Paya and Zelda backwards; Daruk just took a few steps back, still grinning as Yunobo looked around. They weren't in the volcano anymore! That… really made things seem a lot less threatening. Which made the ambiguity even _more_ threatening.

"Is everyone OK? What happened? Where's the monster?"

"Dead," Zelda said, having regained her composure. She'd taken off her Flamebreaker helm, was holding it under her arm. "Daruk killed it with the Boulder Breaker after you gave it to him," and he noticed that she wore the Boulder Breaker on her back, and seemed comfortable with the weight, "but when you landed you broke the beast's spine."

He didn't even have time to process that before Daruk cleared his throat, demanding Yunobo's attention. "That was a _mighty_ leap you made back there. Took a lot of guts, sure… but it took a keen eye, too. You've got a good head on your shoulders, kid. What's your name?"

He stood straighter, throwing his shoulders back, jutting his chest out. It was ridiculous, sure, but he did it anyway. It had never felt more appropriate. "Y-Yunobo. Sir."

"Yunobo!" Daruk clapped one hand on Yunobo's shoulder, and it was so firm that Yunobo had to shift his weight to keep from being shoved to the side. "Did I see you using the Protection back there? You wouldn't happen to have inherited it, would you?" It could have been judgmental, but it wasn't; if anything, the boisterousness of his smile had given over to real warmth.

"Y-yessir, goro. I, uh." What could you really say to that? _Thank for the power_? Was gratefulness even the right response? Was he even grateful, really? Too many questions, not enough answers. Whatever he said here it needed to be _true_ more than it needed to be proper. So: "I wouldn't be much without it."

"None of that, kid, none of that. Power's good and all, but the Protection is just a tool. If anyone else had had the power, they might not have been able to make the jump you did; they might not have even been able to work up the courage to walk up the mountain. It." He paused, brows knitting, but that didn't touch the up-turn of his mouth. "Not good with words. Hundred years, still can't do this. Look, why'd you come up here? You must have known bad stuff was going down; you must have been frightened. Even the Mighty Daruk didn't know how it was going to go! So, why?"

"I-I mean, _yeah_ , I was scared, goro." It'd been more than that, though, hadn't it? Maybe a lot more. Did Daruk need to hear all that? No, he didn't. But the Champion needed to hear the truth, just like Yunobo needed to tell it, so there was no point trying to talk around it. "But my friends were up here, and… I couldn't leave them to face all this alone, goro. It's just…" Just _right_? Proper? Manly? As would be expected of him? None of that felt right; none of that _was_ right. The more he tried to clarify, the murkier the answer became, the further he drifted away from the truth. What did that leave him with? He let his hands drop, his posture slumping. "I just couldn't."

Daruk's hand was on his shoulder again, but instead of an impact it was a gentle touch, fingers firm in their grip. Daruk's hand was awfully solid, for a ghost. Solid and warm. "Listen, little guy. You did the right thing, and you can work out the reasons for that later. If it turns out that the whole reason you did it was to help your friends… so much the better. I've only known you a few minutes, Yunobo, but I'm proud of you. Real proud."

Yunobo turned his face away so the Champion couldn't see, even though he knew Daruk wouldn't really care.

"I'm gonna send you home now, OK? I need to talk to Zelda and Paya before they go, but I have a feeling they won't be headed back down through Goron City right away. If you want to say your goodbyes, you should do it now."

 _Good-byes?_ It wasn't until that second that he realized he'd been expecting to walk down the mountain with them, to have them stay in the city for a little longer. Now they'd be able to talk about normal things, maybe; but no, they had places to be, didn't they? And they were really, really kind; if he told them how much he was hoping to talk to them, how much he wanted to get to know them better, it would just make things harder for them. So, he wouldn't.

He grinned, as wide as he could, and stood straight and proper and turned to face the two women. He bowed in the Hylian style—though low for a Goron wasn't very low for Hylians, if he went _that_ low he'd just fall over—and spoke with all the positive energy he could muster: "Thank you both very much, goro! I hope we'll meet again soon."

"I'm sure we will," Zelda said, and Paya's answer was too low to hear but she was looking warmly at him and that was really all he needed.

"Kid!" Light was blossoming at his feet as Daruk spoke, gold and wild like the power Zelda had been using. "You don't let anyone call our power by its old name anymore, got it? When you use it, it's Yunobo's Protection." Something in his eyes must have betrayed what he was feeling, because the Champion was laughing. "And if they don't like it, they can come to the top of Death Mountain and hear it from the mighty Daruk!"

Then the light covered everything, and he was gone and away.

 _Oh man, I'm going to have to tell Bludo why I don't have the Boulder Breaker anymore!_

* * *

Zelda watched Daruk's body language as the point of light that carried Yunobo rose into the sky, headed for Goron City. Daruk, from what she could remember of how she thought of him before, liked to give off the impression that he existed only in a given moment, paying no mind to the future or to the past. She had believed that, a century ago; watching the lines of his mouth, now, the cast of his eyes as his descendant returned home, she did not know how she could fail so badly to understand another.

"He's a good kid," Daruk said. "Still got a lot to work through, but he'll be OK. Reminds me of myself, really. …Better with dogs, hopefully."

"Dogs?" Something tickled at the back of her mind, but not enough to remember.

"Hey! Ah, and don't think you two didn't do a good job too! You were great. Haven't seen anybody fight like you two in a long time." He paused, gazing into the middle distance. "Which… makes sense, I guess." He snapped back. "Anyway! Tiny princess, you mentioned that Mipha already gave you her blessing. I want to give you mine. The kid's power will be named for him, now, so Daruk's Protection belongs to you."

In another place, another lifetime, to someone else, he would have made a show of the passage; here, now, for Zelda, he held out his hand with his palm up. Light gathered there, light tinged with the faintest halo of red, and with a motion of his fingers it floated through the air toward her, as relaxed as dandelion fluff. She did not reach out for it; she watched it settle against her chest piece and then sink down into it, past it, into the place within her where the goddess's power resided. Mipha's power was cool and soothing, like water; Daruk's power was warm, and felt so solid that just being around it could bolster one's courage.

"Any time you need it," Daruk said, "just concentrate. It's not inexhaustible, but this will turn away the heaviest blows, no problem. Daruk's Protection is yours now; use it to annihilate Ganon." He sighed through his nose. "There, that's out of the way. Now, what's the plan?"

The plan. Yes, because of course there was a plan. Her eyes found Paya for confirmation, but the other woman's expression said everything plainly: _I will follow your lead_. So instead she looked out across the mountain, across Hyrule itself. The view from Vah Rudania allowed her to take in nearly the entire kingdom.

"I will free the other Champions and their Divine Beasts, and all of us will destroy Ganon together. I must martial my own strength before joining the battle, though. We are traveling to different places in Hyrule where I might be able to restore my memory, and my power thereby. Beyond that, I think we will go to Akkala; the Spring of Power is there, and a research laboratory where I might learn more about the ancient technology used to fight Ganon in the past." To the west, a field of green and pink waited, serene and inviting in a way she could not place her finger on. "And we will go to the Korok Forest. I made a promise."

"The Korok Forest, huh." Daruk ran his fingers through his beard. "I'm guessing that means you'd have to go through the Lost Woods. Well, if anyone could do it, it would be you." Then his eyes lit up. "Wait, did you say Akkala? I don't know if she's still around, but one of the Great Fairies used to make her home in the southern end of Akkala, a little way off the main road. If you're headed in that direction, you should definitely stop by and see her."

One of Cotera's sisters? Zelda was sure she remembered the Great Fairy mentioning that visiting more of them would allow each to bless her with more of their power; if that was true, she couldn't afford _not_ to see them. "It will be to Akkala next, then. Daruk, it occurs to me that your perspective might help me recover my memories." She unlatched the Sheikah Slate from its place on her hip, turned it on, flipped through its screens to the relevant album, then held it up for him to see. Daruk leaned in, squinting. "Do you recognize any of these places?"

"Hmmm." He was running his fingers through his beard again, the ghost fires dancing around him. "Well, this one here is probably in the desert, though I couldn't say where exactly. And there's Revali's beast… Ah, yeah, this one is definitely the Spring of Power! You'll find that north of Akkala Citadel. Or… west of it? Never been good with geography." His eyes cut back, then he leaned forward and tapped the screen with his finger, the force of which Zelda felt all the way down to her elbows. "This one here is actually just down the southwest side of the mountain, near the forest. It's out of your way from Akkala, but I could send you there, if you like."

"Oh, _could_ you? It would save us the better part of a day, and—"

"And time is of the essence. Isn't it always." She must have looked as abashed as she felt, because Daruk laughed thunderously. "Don't worry about it, tiny princess! You go do your job, and I'll do mine! When you see the little guy, tell him old Daruk's thinking about him."

The light that enveloped her and Paya was so fast, so insistent, that she didn't even have time to say farewell; in a moment all she could see was Daruk, grinning and waving, and then everything was lost in the brightness.

* * *

Daruk watched the two rising, lowered his arm, and sighed again.

"Still not any good at goodbyes. Really gotta work on that. Or, well, maybe I don't! One benefit of being dead, I suppose, people stop expecting you to mind your manners so much."

He pulled his beard, scratched his head, and then walked to the top of Vah Rudania's head. He didn't _have_ to walk; he could move as far as he wanted without walking, now. Another benefit of being dead. But walking made him feel more anchored in the world, more like he was doing what he was supposed to be doing, and so he walked to the platform on top of his Divine Beast's skull.

The mountain spread out before him. She wasn't looking _great_ , the mountain; the temperature was out of control, there were monsters all over the place, and he could see fissures on every slope that exposed the burning magma to open air. Vah Rudania told him, in that subtle way he'd never really had time to learn while he was alive, all the different ways in which the fire beneath the mountain moved and breathed. The mountain was trembling, waiting for the next explosion of Ganon's fury.

Then he settled on Goron City, and for whatever reason he felt the tension melt out of his shoulders. He sat on the platform, legs crossed, and prepared to wait. And think. Thinking definitely made waiting a lot easier, if you had enough to think about, and Zelda and Paya had given him plenty, but…

"Yunobo, huh." Skinny, still, but his appetite would assert itself eventually, and then the kid would be the size of a mountain. Maybe even bigger than his ancestor. Sensitive, too, but it was better that he was sensitive. It'd be harder for him, and the other Gorons would give him grief for a long time, but in the end Yunobo would have a kind of strength and empathy that was rare among anyone. "A good kid." Just that one word, _good_ , put a warm spot in his chest. He thought back to the raised voices of rowdy kids, and how much he had wished for them not to be strong or brave so much as _good_. And, in a small way, seeing Yunobo made him feel fulfilled. "I guess the gods are kind, after all."

But good people deserved a good world to grow up in, didn't they? Sure, they did. Nothing more fundamental. And it was the responsibility of people like him to make sure that the world could _be_ good, and that future generations would be able to enjoy the fruits of better circumstances. He hadn't done that; he'd failed pretty spectacularly. But… he'd make good, still.

Hyrule Castle swirled with the power of the Calamity, and if he could feel pain anymore he would have felt the tightness of his fingers biting into his palms. He was itching for a fight. Oh, he'd been itching for a fight for a _long_ time, and the Fireblight? That'd just been a _prelude_ , a _prologue_ to the real thing. That was still to come.

A blue light shone in Hyrule Castle, and even from all that distance he could sense an ancient voice raised in mighty song.

No. Not a prelude, or prologue, or anything like that. The real fight had been going on for a century. He was just late.

"But I'm going to be there soon." He held up his fist, hoping that some portion of his strength could reach out across the kingdom. "Just hold on a while longer, little guy."

* * *

The sky was blue over Death Mountain, the light of the morning sun warm and pleasant on Zelda's skin. She hoped that the weather would hold; at the elevation of Goron City, the mountain could actually feel quite cool, and she wasn't dressed quite as warmly as she'd been when she had asked Daruk to be the pilot for Vah Rudania.

Well, regardless. The weather was gorgeous _now_ , and she intended to make the best of it. Good weather, beautiful scenery, good… company? Was Link good company? Yes. Yes, she decided—not for the first time—he was.

Zelda walked up the short path to the small rocky plateau that stood a few meters more elevated than the surrounding mountainside. The perspective this lent was almost unique; pulling out the Sheikah Slate and looking through its viewfinder, she found it was like seeing through the eyes of a bird. A novel perspective, and anyone who hadn't stood in this spot wouldn't know the secret. She took a photograph, saved it to her permanent archives, and smiled at the thought of how others might feel, seeing it.

They'd gone for some time without speaking, so she broke the silence. "You've known Daruk for quite a while, haven't you?" The Hero nodded. "Did his letter sound like he was nervous?"

He was quiet for a minute, considering his words. Even now, after the time they'd spent traveling together in better companionship, he was careful to be sure of everything that he said. The pressure of his station was always with him, and in this he never let down his guard, even with her, fearing that he would reduce himself in her eyes (and the grim irony squeezed at the inside of her chest).

"Daruk is not very good at writing down his feelings." He spoke carefully, too, never too slowly or too quickly. "But yes, I think he's nervous. He's an old hand at everything he does, so this is the first time he's been completely new to something in decades."

"That makes sense." It made enough sense that she really should have imagined it before; she thought of all the Champions as being infallible, but that couldn't really be true, could it? All of them had things they weren't good at, and maybe Daruk's was learning new things. "Still. We'll be doing some maintenance on Vah Rudania to make sure that it is properly calibrated, so that his connection with it can be as smooth as possible."

Link smiled faintly, in a way that reminded her of something else. "We'll see."

She didn't have to ask: the last time she had seen him smile that way, he had been watching fresh recruits training under his supervision. Though he had become withdrawn since taking up the Master Sword and being assigned as her personal guardian, Link had not risen to his position among the rest of the royal guard through strength of arm alone: he was also an empathetic and effective leader whose subordinates were fiercely loyal. Doubtless he suspected that Daruk's confidence flagging might be related to any problems with his connection, and it was _also_ doubtless that he had just the right thing to say to get the Goron Elder into a better state of mind.

She was glad of that. It would be easy to pity herself, because she could never speak to Daruk in the way that Link was planning, but more she was forced to appreciate him for who he was. Link was the single soldier in Hyrule who had the most authority; even the king's guard were technically subordinate to the princess's. When she came of age and rose to power, Link would have more martial command than even the dowager king. Would that weigh as heavily on him, in the future, as the question of Ganon weighed on him now? She hoped not; she could not have said, yet, exactly why that hope was so desperate.

The ground beneath her moved very subtly, and Link was instantly at her side in case she needed something to grab onto for balance; he did not presume to put his hand out, much less touch her. She kept herself steady, though; the rumblings of Death Mountain were not wholly strange to her. Still. Something about that shake felt unusual. Almost… local.

Zelda could not have said exactly what it was that made her look through the lens of the Sheikah Slate again, or why she looked to the road that they had just walked. If she thought to question it, that fled her mind at the sight of the cracks in the road and the surrounding countryside, at the black-and-purple smoke that oozed out of those fissures with dark promise.

"Link," she said, and he was already looking. She put the slate away, looking to him instead. His eyes had taken on a different cast, now; the pressure had fallen away from him, replaced by surety, and his eyes took in the surrounding area instantly as he weighed options. But what options could there be, here? The hillside was almost completely exposed, with no easy places to hide. From the amount of smoke and Malice oozing out of the ground, a copious number of monsters were about to coalesce; the two of them would be found in minutes.

"Stay here," he said, speaking in the tone that said their relative authority had swapped places. "Kneel behind that rock and keep your head down. Stay there until I signal it is safe." Without waiting to see if she would comply, he was already stepping off the front of the outcropping, sliding down the steep face on sure feet. The Master Sword was still on his back.

"Link! Wait!" He did not look back, did not shout a correction, did not use one of his many hand-signals; he just walked toward where the smoke had gathered into clouds of darkness, and out of that darkness shapes began to take form. Those shapes covered the hillside, dozens of them, and as her guardian walked toward them they turned to him with glowing, golden eyes. She knelt behind the rock, but could not keep her eyes from him, from what he was walking into.

A shift in pressure, a sound like death rattles, and there they stood: bokoblins in their dozens, skin the color of burnished silver or old rust, carrying weapons made from the bones of dragons. Moblins of black or silver skin, with clubs longer and heavier than a Hylian's body. And at the center of the horde, _three_ lynels, their pelts striped black and white, their weapons hooked and twisting, their eyes locked on the lone Hylian who stood before them.

Seeing him from behind, Link gave no sign of the danger he faced. He reached over his shoulder, and the Master Sword's radiance was blinding as he pulled it from its sheath.

The lynels roared, all their subordinate fellows joining in an explosion of noise, and Zelda ducked her head behind the rock, squeezing her eyes shut as if she could close out the world.

The crash of a thunderbolt rocked the hillside, and she covered her ears to block out the noise, the pressure. She thought her hearing was damaged, because the noise did not fade, the crash kept building inside of her skull, and it was another five seconds before she realized it was just continuing, rolling on and on without ceasing. Below it was the sound of bokoblins screaming, the death cries of moblins, the challenge of the lynels—but first, most insistent, was the thunder.

 _What is that?_

She raised her head. Stared. Did not understand what she was seeing.

A ribbon of light wended through the air, tracing a course between each of the beasts that had come to kill the princess and her guard, and each time it drew near to one there was a crash of thunder, a scream, a flying body. The ribbon seemed attached to a blur, and—

And she saw the lynels and lowered her head again, clapping her hands over her ears.

 _No. Think. That sound, you've heard that before. When was it?_ A bokoblin wandering across their path on the long trip from the desert to the mountain. Link drawing the Master Sword, which flashed and roared a single high jagged note when he struck the bokoblin down. _No. This isn't like that. But… maybe it is. Maybe if it were repeated enough times, so close together, it._

The thunderclap rolled on and on, and the beating of massive hooves was nearly drowned out beneath it.

 _Is that_ Link _? Was he the one holding the—was that the Master Sword? It must have been. What else,_ who _else could it have been? But to look like that, to leave those trails, he, how—_

Her thoughts ceased to order themselves into words, and she was left with formless questions like images imprinted on the spots that swam in her vision as she squeezed her eyes shut. To make the Master Sword roar that way, how many times was he striking his foes _every second_? To leave those streaks in the air, how quickly was he moving between his targets? How could he process information that fast? She thought she'd understood his strength from watching him spar with the other Champions, but this, _this_! It was as if the Master Sword was lightning in his hand, as if he were one of the gods descended to smite the forces of darkness.

A moment of silence, stretching long enough for her to open her eyes and lower her hands. Then a single bark of the Master Sword, and the death-cry of a lynel followed by the sound of a heavy body slumping to the ground.

 _What is he?_

"Princess!"

At the sound of his voice—controlled, though he could not hide his concern from her like he could for other people, she heard the quiet tremble there—she rose. She did not know what she would see when she looked at him, so she did not see him first; first she saw the field of bodies, the scattering of dozens of monsters laid low in a matter of seconds. He had slain them as if they'd been made of straw. As if they hadn't even been real.

 _What is he?_

With great effort she looked at him, and.

And he stood there, and when their eyes met his brow relaxed and he exhaled, as if he'd been holding that breath the entire time she was out of sight. His left hand held his right forearm, and she could see blood running between his fingers from where one of the monsters had marred him. One wound—all of that, and one wound, and it was such a small thing, compared to what he had done. He barely seemed to notice it, except to hold pressure there; he was looking only at her, and now he sheathed his sword and began to walk back.

"Wait there," she said, rummaging through their pack for bandages. There were no monsters, now, and he obeyed, staring at her without any expectations, any suppositions about who she was or what she should be doing. It had taken her so very long to understand the weight of his eyes, to stop thinking of him as an extension of the sword he carried. She would not slip from that now, not when he had done all of that and still found space in himself to fear for her. The warmth in his eyes when he had looked at her was answered by a warmth that spread through her chest, and she could not give a name to that feeling now, but she would, in time.

She retrieved the bandages and antiseptic and started walking toward him, first going down the path that he had slid past.

It would be a century before she knew the answer to her last question.

* * *

The effort of retrieving and reliving memory took its toll on the Princess, as it always did. She wanted to continue onward, to cut across Death Mountain and reach the Akkala Tower, but after dealing with Vah Rudania, receiving Daruk's blessing, facing the Fireblight, and all these memories and questions about Link, exhaustion told on her resistance. When Paya began to make camp on the spot where she had regained her last memory, Zelda did not do more than offer up the faintest of protests. Paya built the fire, and Zelda roasted mushrooms, and the two of them had a very simple dinner. Zelda spread out her bedroll, got halfway through a sentence about how she could have continued, and then fell asleep. She wouldn't wake until sunrise, easily.

It was hours before Paya lay down in turn. She had built the fire in such a position that Zelda unknowingly made her bed against the same rocky outcropping she had hidden behind a century before, which allowed Paya to lie facing outward. There were no beasts on this part of the mountain; the proximity of the stable was testament to that. Still.

After what seemed a long time, the Boulder Breaker and the Lightscale Trident gave off a soft glow. Neither woman saw that, of course, nor did they see when the ghosts of the Champions manifested, then took their places next to the fire.

Daruk and Mipha sat near to each other, positioned so that each could see both sleepers. They did not look at each other directly; they watched the fire, and listened to the night, and sat under the stars for the first time in a century. The world moved around them, and they were part of it, however ephemeral that part might be.

After a companionable silence Daruk said, "Been a long time."

"It has. It is such a relief to hear your voice again, Daruk. I have missed you dearly."

"Me too. It was quite the wait, wasn't it? All that cold and dark… almost enough to make you forget what you were waiting for."

"Almost."

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE**_ _:_ All right! Death Mountain's effectively wrapped up.

The next couple of chapters will be a little bit more rapid-fire in terms of their pacing. Got some ground to cover! Places to go, memories to recover! Those of you who wanted more Link: keep your eyes out for the next two or three installments, and I'll do my best.

My classes are ramping up, so I can't make specific promises regarding the pace of the updates, but I'll do my best. Thank you for continuing on this journey with me!


	27. Akkala

Zelda had assumed that the power of the Great Fairies was borne on their breath. That Mija, like Cotera, would confer her blessing through a current of air, the medium of her life force. She had asked Paya, weeks ago in Kakariko Village, if Cotera's blessing had seemed at all like blowing a kiss. Paya had blushed so red that she looked as if she was about to catch fire, shaken her head, and refused (or been unable) to answer out loud. Zelda had let that go, deciding that it was more likely that the power of the fairies was tied in some way to the elements.

Zelda was realizing she had assumed _erroneously_.

Mija brought up one perfectly manicured finger, as long as Zelda's torso, and kissed the tip with luxuriously painted lips. Then, smiling with a look that Zelda could not quite unpack, she reached out and brushed that same fingertip, with all delicacy, against Zelda's own lips. The touch was so soft she was barely sure there had been any contact at all.

Mija drew back her hand as her power swirled around Zelda, infusing the bright blue tunic and blouse that she wore. In exchange for flowers and the shards from the horn of a dragon—Dinraal had left behind more than a few, in their last meeting—she had been granted a great power. That was how she was choosing to see this.

She glanced at Paya, who was a familiar shade of crimson and taking in the scene from between the fingers of the hands she was holding over her face. Well. Not _everyone_ could be expected to see things the way that she did. That wouldn't be reasonable at all.

Zelda cleared her throat, and Mija reacted not at all; the Great Fairy had been through all of this before, it seemed, and her smile never wavered.

"Are all of the Great Fairies' blessings," Zelda began, "communicated through…" She grasped for a word. "Affection?"

"Oh, yes," Mija said, her voice high and melodic and airy. Her smallest motions were intimate and languid, giving an air of easy friendliness and easy intimacy, though Zelda suspected that the Great Fairy could lift a lynel above her head and hurl it off the nearby cliffside without much effort. "It is the way of things, you know. Blessings are always an act of love, in one form or another, no matter who is giving them. The stronger the imparting, the more earnest the expression of that love must be." Mija shifted, leaning forward very slightly. "Of course, it helps when the one _seeking_ a blessing is so sweet."

Zelda cleared her throat again. Great, now _she_ felt like Paya probably did. "Well. Thank you. I-I would have more of your strength added to mine, if you have time—"

"Oh, I do."

"—but first I have questions, if I may. Cotera mentioned that receiving two blessings may confer some additional power?"

That languid smile split into a grin. "You have a truly hungry mind. It's very endearing, you know. Yes, the strength we add to your armor may bring out some hidden potential, but that will only be true when you are using pieces that are made for each other, that _resonate_ with each other—are part of a set, in other words. And not every set is so special."

"Is there any way to tell what armor may or may not benefit?"

The grin shifted back to a smile. "Only through experimentation, I'm afraid. If you have armor that has uses beyond _just_ being armor, then your chances are much better."

Zelda nodded, going over her list in her head. She had the Zora armor, and matching greaves, but no headpiece, so that was out. The Flame Breaker set might be good, though she couldn't really imagine how much more effective it might be made. Perhaps it could be completely fire-proof? The stealth suit, maybe.

"You are lost in thought," Mija said, and laughed at Zelda's flinch. "Don't be embarrassed! It's very cute. Still, you don't have to worry so much, you know? Just try things out. I'm sure it will be fine." The fairy interlaced her fingers, holding them over her head in a long, deep stretch before lowering her arms again. "You're feeling shy, and I understand, but it's so marked that you've forgotten questions you wanted to ask. So, I'll volunteer information. How's that?" She gestured, with one hand, to the north. "I haven't been getting much news for the past hundred years, but before I lost my power I heard that someone was building an institution on the northern edge of Akkala, trying to suss out how weapons and armor were made in the era of the Guardians. You might find something interesting there. And, if you take the main road, you should eventually come to a path that will lead you to the Spring of Power. Your power's already awoken, but it can't hurt to visit a place that's been so important through so many lifetimes, can it?"

"No." She looked north, too. Daruk had said one of her photographs was taken at the Spring of Power, and Purah's assistant was supposed to have a laboratory in the North. "I suppose it cannot. Thank you, Mija, that is very helpful."

"I'm very glad. Now, do you have any more armor you would like me to enhance?"

Zelda's color rose, and she darted another glance at Paya, who was now peeking out from behind a tree.

"A-ah, well, if you don't _mind_ , I was hoping that my stealth armor could be a bit sturdier, and…"

* * *

The Akkala Tower was situated above the Akkala Citadel, its blue radiance a counterpoint to the devastation that it stood over. The citadel itself was clean—there _had_ been monsters there, but bringing back the function of the flying Guardians had taken care of that problem _very_ quickly. Even more than the stalkers, the flying guardians presented a problem that moblins, bokoblins, and lizalfos simply were not prepared to deal with. Zelda thought them truly marvelous, wondered at what other feats of engineering the ancients must have been capable of. She would never be able to work it out on her own.

The house that stood at the top of a hill in the northeast was in some ways similar to Purah's laboratory. From her perch atop the tower—and up so high it was cold enough that she and Paya had partaken of a spicy fish fry, prepared in anticipation of moments like this—she could only _barely_ make out the tell-tale blue flame through the Sheikah Slate's lens. She put a marker on it, referenced her map, nodded. Yes, that would be the place. She had already marked a quarry that seemed a likely site for the Spring of Power. Now all they needed to do was make the trip.

"We are so high up," Zelda said, "that I don't know if my strength would hold out if we used the paragliders for the entire descent. It might be best to set down at the top of that hill, with the three trees—then we can work our way down to the quarry on foot. After that we can," and that is when she realized how little Paya was responding, verbally or otherwise, and looked over at her companion. Paya, always attentive to a fault, was staring at the middle distance, focusing on nothing.

Paya did not react to what Zelda had been saying or the sudden stop. This was… not _entirely_ new, but still novel. Zelda let the silence stretch out. Five seconds passed, then ten.

"Paya," she said at last, and the other girl jumped like a startled rabbit. "What are you thinking about?"

Zelda did not have to use her power to deepen her perceptions: Paya's reactions were like a road map for her brain. She instantly and simultaneously flushed, looked around, wrung her hands together, and took a very long, deep breath to steady herself. She'd been thinking on this enough that she'd probably been having this conversation in her head—but hadn't practiced so much that she could banish her nervousness.

"I apologize for my inattentiveness," Paya started, then winced and broke eye contact as Zelda scowled. "I know. Still, I _am_ sorry; I didn't mean to do that, shouldn't have. S-s-since you asked, I was thinking about… how you relate to the world around you. How the Champions did, too. And Link. It occurred to me that when you were speaking to the honored Mija that it felt like the world revolved, in some fundamental way, around the royal family's battle with Ganon." Her expression darkened, brows drawn together. "Grandmother always liked to say that the history of the royal family is also the history of Ganon… anyway! It just made me think about how much seems to depend on you, and how much of the world will seek to aid you in the fight against the darkness. Such as, for instance," and here Paya wrung her hands together even harder but her face became perfectly, _alarmingly_ neutral, as if she'd been practicing, "hypothetically speaking, do you suppose that the Great Fairies will only use their magic on the armor of the Princess and the Hero?"

 _That_ sent Zelda's mind wandering down paths that made her forget utterly about trying to dissect the shifting of Paya's expressions, the oddness of her behavior. She knew intimately how much she had believed, a hundred years ago, that the world was hinging on her ability to seal Ganon. Truth be told, she believed—no, she _knew_ that, now. But did _all_ the world see it that way? How conceited, how self-absorbed, would she have to be to believe that she was the only one so important to be able to beseech the gods for a blessing? Were not _all_ the peoples of Hyrule said to be beloved of Hylia? Why wouldn't that be true of other gods, or any major powers?

So, she responded, "Based on what Cotera said, I do not believe so. If people went on pilgrimage to make offerings to the Great Fairies, and at the time the sisters were at the height of their power, then I must believe that they would have granted blessings in return. Perhaps, in the distant past, the armorers of Hyrule supplemented their art with the magic of greater powers? That would make sense to me. Perhaps I will ask Mija about it, when we speak to her again. I don't know how old the Great Fairies are, but perhaps she would have some insight into the way things used to be, even if not in that antiquity."

During this, Paya was nodding thoughtfully, eyes focused on Zelda's, visibly turning these ideas over in her head. "D-do you suppose she might be willing to enhance _my_ clothing?"

Instantly Zelda's guts turned to ice. She'd done all that fortifying, turning the least of her clothing into armor that could turn aside an arrow as if it were a whisper, and hadn't even _considered_ getting that done for Paya.

"Oh, my goodness, Paya, I'm so sorry! I hadn't even thought of that! How… how _thoughtless_ I've been, to armor myself while you are as vulnerable to our enemies as the day we left the village together." Zelda realized that if someone were to fire a bomb arrow at her, she would live, though not comfortably; Paya would very likely die on the spot. She tried very hard not to be sick, barely succeeded. "I'm sure she would be! I mean, I'm not _sure_ , but we can ask her when we speak to her next. We can go right now! Shall we head back down?"

Paya, for her part, seemed very calm, and Zelda marvelled at her graciousness. "Thank you, but no. I think I will be all right until we have occasion to speak to her again."

"But we _will_ ask her. That's not a question! I… if you're feeling shy, just let me know, and I'll ask her on your behalf!"

"I think I will be able to manage for myself." What did the rise in her color even _mean_ , now? Anger? Embarrassment? Frustration? Zelda had to fight down the urge to reach out with the power and just instantly understand everything Paya was feeling without ambiguity as the other woman stepped onto the edge of the Tower's viewing platform. "It will be a long trip down. Shall we go?"

Zelda was still fuming at herself when the two of them leaped off the side of the tower and began the long glide down to the top of the hill. So focused was she on how badly she had behaved, how poorly she had treated Paya, that she did not see how long it took for her friend's complexion to normalize.

* * *

"What is it? What's wrong with me?"

Hylia did not answer Zelda—none of the gods did, none of the spirits did, but she felt it most sharply with Hylia, whose statue only looked on serenely, perfect and blessed and distant and cold.

"Curse you," she said again, and meant it, too empty to even feel shame at her blasphemy. Her own voice rejoined in her head, _Oh, yes, why_ wouldn't _the gods grant you a mighty power when you're_ so _grateful to them?_ She tried to push it away, but the words weighed on her as if they had been cast in iron, dragging her down, making her every movement heavier, worse than the water-soaked ceremonial dress. It was unfair. All of this was unfair. But she was still missing something—still fundamentally broken. Both of those things could be true, couldn't they? They weren't mutually exclusive. And if one of them _had_ to be false…

There would be no more praying tonight, no pretending to serenity. She turned away from the statue, rubbing at her eyes, trying to be quiet enough that Link wouldn't hear her—only to see that he was no longer facing away from her. He must have heard the abuses she heaped on the divine. And now he saw her like this. Now _he_ saw her like _this_.

Deliberately she filled her cupped hands with water and washed her face. She rinsed three times, running her fingers over her eyebrows, her cheeks, her mouth. If she could have, she would have scrubbed away every mark of her shame, every evidence that she had ever wept at her own failure… but she couldn't. Link would have probably seen it, anyway.

When she looked up, he was standing in the water, at the base of the steps, slightly to the side of center. She grabbed two bunches of her dress and slowly waded toward him, trying hard to look straight ahead, rather than at his face. He never, _ever_ presumed to place himself where he might touch her, save by her instruction—and after struggling to rise from the Spring of Courage, she had asked him to be on hand in any other, similar cases. Better that he give her support than she should have to scrabble on stone steps with her hands because this _stupid_ dress was so heavy.

He held out his hand for her and she took it, using him as leverage to ascend the steps. He was absolutely steady, as much as the stone beneath her feet, and his eyes were on her—was he wondering if she would fall? Trip? Break down crying again? Well, she couldn't blame him, in any case.

Reaching the top of the steps, she took a moment to just stand there and _drip_ , letting the cold wash over her like a kind of special finish to her misery and self-pity. Yes. That was just about perfect. She took the bunched-up fabric in her hand and wrung it out, accomplishing remarkably little, then walked out of the temple. Link followed her at a respectful distance.

Their fire had burned down, but Link restored it quickly, with the calm expertise of someone used to keeping warm without walls to shield him. And, just as at the Spring of Courage, he set up a thin, tall screen of woven reeds that perimeter around the fire, then stood with his back to it so that the screen separated him from the light and the warmth and he looked out into the night.

Zelda pulled aside one part of the screen, muttered her thanks, and stepped in before pulling the reed wall shut behind her. That moment, when she was completely enclosed so that it was just her and the fire, was the first moment of real privacy she'd had in many hours. She savored it, before guilt soured that feeling.

Link had cleaned and folded her riding uniform—when he'd had the time to do that she had no idea—and left it on top of her traveling pack. She removed the dress and donned her warm, dry clothes, and tried not to be overwhelmed at the sight of a coarse, warm blanket tucked beneath where her uniform had rested. This she wrapped around her shoulders, sat down, and took another moment to appreciate the simple reality of physical comfort before saying, "I'm finished."

Link took down the screen and folded it, packing it away as Zelda sat by the fire and warmed herself. Her dress he took in his hands, rolled it up, wrung out with a strength that she still had trouble wrapping her head around, then laid it flat on an incline provided by a crumbling wall. He would launder it later, she imagined, though she wasn't sure when he would sleep.

He worked with remarkable speed: setting up the cookpot over the fire, prepping his ingredients, arranging everything he needed to make their dinner. Originally, he had insisted on cooking for them separately, serving her fare that was both finer and more delicate than what he'd made for himself. It hadn't been easy to convince him to share meals with her—really share them, that is—but once she had gotten him to do it once, she made sure he never did anything else. She liked to watch him cook, and knowing that they would share in his work made her feel less guilty. He normally hummed to himself, happily lost in the act of creation, but he was not doing so now. Perhaps he had read her mood.

In very little time he handed her a plate, and she mumbled thanks as she took it from him. Salmon meuniere, topped with Hyrulian herbs and served on a bed of meticulously washed rice. A feast, really, and he had managed to prepare it with the equivalent of one cast-iron pan. In spite of herself, despite how hungry she would have said she _wasn't_ only minutes ago, the smell of the herbs and butter made her mouth water. The first bite confirmed her expectations: it was delicious, and hearty, and felt intensely nourishing in the way that only oily fish can be.

Taking her first bite as his cue, Link started in on his own plate, and _this_ Zelda took the time to watch. Watching him cook was one thing; watching him eat was quite another. Where most people merely ate, Link seemed to _inhale_ food as if it were air. By the time she was halfway through chewing her third mouthful he had cleaned his plate to a sparkling sheen, not one drop of butter or grain of rice left behind by his alarmingly precise fork. Fascinating. Mildly terrifying, but still: fascinating.

Zelda ate slowly while Link went about the business of setting up camp, erecting the tent she would spend the night in and laying out her bedroll and pillows inside of it. His own bedroll he left rolled up—he would lay it out across the entrance to her tent once she had gone to sleep. After lifting the cooking pot, he stepped away from the light of the fire, tending to the area around the camp and checking on the horses before returning and taking his seat across from her.

She had thought she wasn't hungry, but before long Zelda was let with an empty plate, which she held out to him. This he took, setting it aside with his own.

"Thank you," she said, breaking the long silence. "That was delicious."

"You looked like you needed something warm."

She nodded. He meant "warm" in more than one way, she suspected. Hence all the butter, which he treated as a comfort food. She hadn't been shy about her need for comfort, she supposed. What a pathetic sight she must have made, even to him who judged her not at all.

But… that almost asked its own question, didn't it? And she was too down to force herself to reconsider before the words were out of her mouth. So:

"Link." He had already been watching her, waiting for her to speak, but now he snapped to an even sharper attention. "I felt nothing. None of the voices from the spirit world spoke to me. Hylia remains silent. There is no spark of the power inside of me. It…" _It makes me feel empty_. "It makes me wonder… why…" No. She would not lose control now. Not in front of him. Not again. Not twice in one accursed day. She breathed through her nose. "Why do you still follow me? You've seen me at my lowest. You've heard what the people of Hyrule think of me; you've, you've heard what my own _father_ thinks of me. Of my failures. So… why? Is it out of duty?" _Is it out of pity_?

For a long, long time, Link didn't say anything. He blinked rapidly for a few moments, then his eyes darted around the clearing in which they sat, but he never turned his face from her. Months ago, she would have thought him disgusted, sitting in judgment of her—but now she knew that she had put him in an impossible situation, asking him questions she couldn't possibly expect him to answer truthfully. She also found that she could not even feel shame for doing this to him.

Instead of speaking, he rose, stepping around the fire toward her. He unbuckled the belt holding the Master Sword to his back, then unfastened the sheath. Then he kneeled, holding up the sword that seals the darkness in its scabbard, offering it to her. He did not lower his eyes.

She looked right back, but he gave no signal more than what he'd already done. But, then, how much more explicit could he _be_ , really? She took the weapon in her hands. It wasn't very heavy—good swords almost never were, and what sword could be finer than this?—but it was very long. It felt solid and did not rattle, as if the scabbard had been molded to the blade that rested in it.

"What am I supposed to—?"

"Please look at it," he said.

This felt like blasphemy, but if she felt that way then she could only imagine how it felt for _him_ ; the Master Sword was said to be the very embodiment of the Hero's soul, the ultimate proof that they were who they were supposed to be. It was as if he had put his beating heart in her hands; she couldn't imagine anything more vulnerable. How could she possibly refuse?

The sound of the blade being pulled free of its scabbard was sonorous—but it was so long that she couldn't pull it out all the way on her own. Before she could struggle with it, Link took the scabbard in his hands and pulled it away, letting her pull the sword free. There was a moment where she was afraid she would let the blade dip, maybe even touch the ground, but she wrapped both her hands around the hilt and hoisted it.

And felt nothing. She didn't know why, but she had been… expecting to feel something. Some echo of the surety that Link seemed to have, some part of the purpose that was invested in the blade. The barest remnant of an ancient voice. But... there was nothing. Only a sword. She squeezed her eyes shut, willed herself back from the brink.

"I don't understand what you want me to see," she said, and thought she sounded very level.

"The Master Sword rested in the Lost Woods," Link said, and that pulled her back to reality. She had heard rumors of this, but from what she could learn no one had accompanied Link on his journey into the forest. Some had tried to follow him and only ended up back at the entrance, chased by laughter. "When I came to it, it was resting in a stone dais." He set his mouth, deciding whether to say something. "A lot happened. What matters is that the act of drawing the sword from its resting place drained me. The guardian of the forest told me that if I hadn't proven myself, made myself into who I was supposed to be, then I would have died. He said that only the Hero could pull the sword free."

He offered the scabbard, and she carefully lowered the sword and slid it back into place. Link took it back into his hands, showing reverence not for the sword but for _her_ , and for some stupid reason that hurt her. She wouldn't voice that hurt. She knew he didn't mean to. She would wait for him to explain.

Then he said, "Even after it's drawn, only the worthy may touch the sword. No one else can hold it."

The crackling of the fire seemed very quiet in the clearing, against the stillness of the air. The horses were at rest, and the bugs were calm, and Link was looking at her from across the fire, holding the Master Sword that had been in her hands.

She looked at her palms, then at the sword. There was a disconnect here. Deeper than the fact that if she was _worthy_ then she should have the power. Deeper even than the idea of worthiness itself. She saw the faith in his eyes and felt a pressure in her chest.

"How," she said, her voice cracking, "did you know I could hold the sword?"

He did not answer. He strapped the scabbard to his back.

She sat in silence for a while, then rose and went to her tent, closing the flap behind her.

* * *

Jerrin and Robbie were sharing in the quiet of the laboratory, the hum of the machinery and the arcing sounds of discharging power providing a low, soothing backdrop to the silence between them. This was the silence of the long-wed; satisfied rather than sullen, appreciative rather than apprehensive. Their son Granté was on a trip searching near the Citadel for remnants of armor that might still be recoverable, and he had gone on so many of these that their relentless anxieties had given a way to a warm kind of familial confidence. All was right with the world. In his many, many decades, Robbie was not sure that he'd ever felt quite this… comfortable.

The door to the laboratory opened, and through his goggles he could make out two figures. His eyesight was going, so he was left only with their silhouettes: a young woman, probably Hylian, wearing a hood, and… for a moment he thought he was looking at Impa, but he pulled himself back to reality and realized the other woman could only be Paya, based on her hair.

"Welcome!" he said, setting his feet apart and turning to face his guests as Paya shut the door softly behind her. "Jerrin, we have visitors. Paya's here! I suspect you'll… you'll…"

He still dreamed, some nights, about the moment when he and the singer—he'd forgotten the man's name in the intervening century—had found Link and Zelda there, just outside of Fort Hateno, the world a smoking ruin around them. Link, shouting orders that Robbie barely heard, and Zelda. Their princess. On the ground, and there had been so much _smoke_ , and _blood_ , he.

She looked down at him with great blue eyes as clear as water and he knew her instantly. He fell to both of his knees, performing the full obeisance, removing his goggles so he could lower his head properly. He did not weep—he had run out of tears long, long ago—but his body shook, so badly that he didn't feel the pressure of Zelda's hand on his shoulder until she squeezed, ever so gently.

"Please," she said, and he looked up as he heard Jerrin gasp next to him, "I need your help."

Who wouldn't have responded to such a request? He nodded. She took her hand away. He rose, with Jerrin's help, and each squeezed the other's fingers to assure themselves that they were still there. Then the work began.

He did not have to explain what was happening to Jerrin; though she'd never seen Zelda before, they'd spend decades preparing for this day and there was never any question as to what was happening. Zelda was as knowledge-hungry as she'd always been, instantly fascinated by Cherry—that is, the ancient oven, and all the different manufacturing processes it was capable of performing automatically. The armor and weapon schematics he'd refined over the course of a century, the automation process and interface that he and Jerrin had designed together, the logistics behind using any individual piece as fuel for the armor or weapons—she wanted to hear _all_ of it. Paya made herself busy being near Zelda the entire time, as if ready to fend off an attack. Just like her grandmother, really.

"I see you have a listing here for a 'Giant Ancient Core,' if we were to try to manufacture a bow." Zelda tapped her finger against the ancient oven's terminal as she spoke.

"Yes, Princess." He'd nearly forgotten his manners; not speaking directly to anyone who outranked him in a century had made him relaxed, complacent. It was difficult to be as deferential as he should be. "You might find these when destroying Guardians, though the violence of their destruction tends to make these difficult to recover. The smaller cores are actually—"

"Not _power_ cores at all." Robbie stopped and stared at the princess, who was looking at the schematics for the ancient greaves. "They're relays between the core and the actuators that drive movement, transformers that regulate energy output to prevent the Guardian's drive from breaking it in half."

Robbie looked to Jerrin, whose eyebrows had risen nearly to her hairline, then turned back to Zelda. "Err. Yes."

"That would imply that each Guardian has at least six," Zelda said, frowning her consternation. The actual number was closer to ten, but it would be unwise to correct her. "A shame to think of wasting a Guardian, but from just _one_ we could recover… hm." She tapped her finger again. "Doctor, how many parts would we need to make a set of the armor, each weapon, and a shield?"

He'd crunched those numbers thousands of time: they came to him instantly. "Ninety-five gears, forty springs, twenty shafts, twenty screws, eighteen cores, and one giant core."

"That, plus a number of springs and shafts equal to the desired quantity of arrows." She nodded. "Paya, where would you say we could destroy a number of recovered Guardians without affecting their patrol coverage and endangering nearby settlements?"

 _Recovered Guardians_? He knew what those words meant, but in that order? It made almost no sense.

"The Citadel to the south," Paya said, instantly. She'd apparently been thinking about this very hard. She seemed so… _different_ from the girl he'd last seen when she was only knee-high. "One Flying Guardian is capable of keeping the mountain clean of monsters, and they have the advantage of being directly beneath a travel marker."

Jerrin, his fiery muse, spoke where he couldn't: "Recovered Guardians? Travel markers? My lady, please forgive my impertinence, but what are you talking about?"

"The Sheikah Slate allows us to travel between guidance stones instantly," Zelda said, taking the slate off her hip and activating its viewscreen. Robbie tried not to gawk at it: the real thing was so much more elegant than the enormous monstrosity that Purah had been developing. "As to the Guardians, I can use my power to restore them to their original function. I have pictures that I can show you, but I fear I must ask for your indulgence: may we discuss this once Paya and I have returned with the necessary parts?"

He must not have been able to move, or speak, because in the distance she heard Jerrin say, "Of course, my lady." Paya and Zelda both bowed their respect—the latter of which made Robbie's hair stand on end—and then dissolved into streams of flowing blue light.

And, just like that, the quiet reigned again. Robbie and Jerrin were left staring into the space that had been occupied by a family friend and the princess to whom they all owed fealty as the machinery hummed along behind them.

Robbie took off his goggles again, rubbed at his eyes.

"We're not charging them a single rupee," Jerrin said.

"Not one," Robbie agreed.

For the first time in many years, Jerrin went to retrieve the fire to light the ancient oven's furnace. There would be a great deal of work to be done soon.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE_** : Things are definitely getting busier. I apologize for my inconsistency, and will keep updating as quickly and as often as I can.

The next time Zelda personally gets into a fight is going to be very different, I think.


	28. The Lost Woods

The path through the forest was serene, an almost total contrast to the fortifications that monsters had built at the foot of the tower on the wood's edge. Zelda and Paya walked in the dappled sunlight, the boughs of the trees above them rustling in the wind. Birdsong rang throughout the woods. In the distance, Zelda saw a number of deer grazing—they noticed her, lifted their heads, were very still, and then kept walking, as if they had judged her not a threat. After the violence of clearing out the monsters, the serenity of these woods, not even in the Lost Woods proper, was like a physical object laid over her awareness. She would not say she felt at peace, exactly. The adrenaline was still pumping, she could still hear the bokoblins shouting and the eruptions of bombs that sent many of them flying into the muck from which they never emerged. Still. This _place_ was peaceful.

Based on her demeanour, Paya seemed to feel the same; she was, as far as Zelda could tell, no longer taking in the environment as a series of places where they might be attacked from or flee to. The quiet of the woods was reflected in Paya's face, the genuine relaxation of her features, the smoothness of her brow. The Sheikah woman removed her hat, letting it hang against her back. Zelda pulled her own hood back, too; the air here was cool, and sweet.

She was still wearing her Hylian tunic; the Ancient Armor that Robbie and Jerrin's machine had produced seemed remarkably resilient, and after conferring with Mija she had concluded that it would resonate with any weapons made by similar means, but she'd had no real occasion to wear it yet. Yes, she could have donned it to clear the monster encampment, or in a dozen other places as they had made their way back down Akkala and across the foot of the Death Mountain range, but none of it felt right. There was a weight to the armor, more than just the fact of its mass, that made her think she should test it somewhere important. Most of the time the two of them only sought to avoid conflict. Wouldn't donning the armor and using the (frighteningly powerful, frankly) weaponry forged in the ancient oven be an intrinsic escalation, an invitation to greater violence? Perhaps she was not ready for that yet. But then, perhaps that was an excuse, too. It was easy to frame an avoidance of violence as a principled stand, instead of one couched in fear. These were the thoughts she was dwelling on as the mist rolled in.

In one moment, the day was clear, and by looking one could see for hundreds of meters in every direction; the next, every space was filled with mist, and that mist with floating, dancing lights, like fireflies or fairies, but less substantial than those, less physically real. For a moment she thought to reach out and touch one of those dancing lights that left faint trails of luminescence hanging in their wake, and then she snapped back to the real world as the coolness of the mist kissed her skin.

"Paya," she said, drawing her hood up, "I think we have reached the Lost Woods."

Paya put her hat back on, looked around them, then shook her head. "I… I disagree."

"You do?"

"Y-yes. I've never been to the Lost Woods, but… but this isn't how they've been described to me. The trees there are different. The _air_ is different. They say one cannot even see the sky there, and that the spirits of the wood are always at your elbow, waiting to lead you astray." Zelda was about to protest these details, to point at the thickness of the fog, when Paya pointed at their feet. "We are still on a path. Should we choose, we could simply turn around and follow it out of the forest. As hard as it is to see, I don't think we're in the Lost Woods proper."

That was true. And, well, what did it matter, anyway? If they weren't there, they soon would be. "Regardless," Zelda said, "please stay close to me." And Paya did.

The path led them through a crevasse of stone, which the entire wood seemed to funnel into, and Zelda thought that perhaps anyone walking into the forest would eventually find their way here, guided by the geometry of the land itself. She kept checking over her shoulder, to make sure that Paya was still behind her, and it was a relief that Paya never really reacted to this inspection, and instead just walked closer to Zelda. Zelda thought about asking Paya to hum, or sing, but she had an image of walking along listening to Paya's voice and then turning to speak to her, only to find that the voice was coming from nowhere and Paya was gone. No. No she would just keep checking, the way she'd been doing.

The crevasse opened up as they came to the roofless ruins of an old house; or, at least she _thought_ it was a house. Two of the walls were missing, and if there _had_ been a roof then the flames rising from the two braziers in the center of the floor would have undoubtedly set it ablaze. Embers rose from the charcoal and oil-treated wood, dancing in the air before being swept away by the wind, out through the gap left by one of the missing walls. She followed the trail with her eyes, watching as the embers faded in the mist, drifting in the direction of another brazier standing alone in the middle of the woods. It was only by the light of its fire that she knew it was there.

"What were you told at the stables, again?" She didn't really need to ask, but she _did_ need to hear it.

Paya was looking in the same direction she was, eyes locked on the glow of the fire in the distance. "That the embers would lead us on the true path, toward our goal."

"Mm. Let us follow them, then."

No, they had not been in the Lost Woods before, Zelda realized as they stepped outside of those ruined walls. _Now_ , only now, had they entered the true domain of the forest spirits.

The mien of the trees was different; that word, _mien_ , pushed its way to the front of her thoughts. When she saw them out of the corner of her eye, she had a childish thought; when she looked directly at them, she realized that childishness did not preclude being true. The trees had faces in their trunks, places where the bark split into leering eyes, where the trunks pulled back into wide, laughing mouths. They were very still—of course they were still, they were _trees_ —but it was the stillness of having been caught in an act. As if they were playing a game, of which she was the object.

They followed the sparks to a second brazier, then to a third. A fourth. On and on, walking quietly through the woods, hushed not by a sense of danger but of _strangeness_. As frightening as the faces on the trees were, they did not convey a sense of malice—only a strange, bouncing humor. And further out, past the crackling of the fires, the gentle blowing of the wind, the animals who sometimes crossed the path of the two women, there was something else.

Zelda remembered at the peak of Mt. Lanayru; how much she had seen, and heard, that Paya could not see and hear.

"Do you hear them?" she asked of her companion.

"I-I-I don't know what you m-m-mean," Paya said, which meant she could not.

She halted then, gently lay her fingertips on Paya's temples. "With your permission, I would open your senses, so you and I may see the same things when we reach our destination."

Paya, scarlet, only nodded. Zelda placed a sliver of the power directly into Paya's thoughts, just enough to match the amount she'd drawn when first she saw the Koroks.

She stepped back, and Paya blinked, looked around, and shivered. "Oh. That. N-no, I hadn't heard that before."

"Don't be afraid of them," Zelda said. It seemed a foolish thing to say on its own, so she continued. "I spoke with them when I freed Naydra. They are very kind, and don't mean any harm."

"As you say," Paya inclined her head in acquiescence, though she was still visibly uncomfortable as they walked deeper into the woods, surrounded by what sounded like the distant laughter of children.

After being led in so many directions that even Paya utterly lost her sense of where they were or where they'd been, they came to a pair of braziers standing together. A torch, unlit, lay against the body of one. Zelda and Paya stood between the two, beside each, just a ways off, and looked around.

Nothing. There were no other braziers, least of all in the direction that the sparks were flowing.

Zelda took the torch in her hand, considered for a moment, and lit it in one of the fires. Paya watched as she held it aloft, and the embers danced through the air. "It seems we will have to make our own way, now."

Now the going was slower, the wind picking up, but that wind did not dispel the mist that pressed in from between the trees, the mist that was barely pushed back at all by the light of the fire. Zelda looked down at her feet, saw how the long, rich grass flowed in the same direction as the embers, and reflected that if the torch were to go out, they could probably still find their way.

The laughter was louder, now, and less distant. There was still no malice there; if anything, the children of the forest seemed _excited_ by their progress. Still. The mist was thick, and she knew that if they went off the path, or were separated by more than meters, then they would be lost, and finding each other again would be a thorny problem indeed.

"Paya," she said, stopping and turning and trying not to sigh with relief when she saw the other woman was still there. "We are drawing near, I think, but the risk of us being separated is growing sharper. Hold on to me, and do not let go until I say so."

Later she would reflect that this was not wholly fair to put on Paya, that she could have taken that initiative for herself. She tried her best in the moment, offering her hand. Paya looked at her, then her hand, nodded, and slipped her palm against Zelda's. The Sheikah girl's grip was firm and strong, though Zelda could feel Paya's heart pounding through her fingertips.

The princess led her attendant deeper and deeper into the Lost Woods.

* * *

Malice spewed out in a geyser as the Master Sword scored an opening against Ganon's chest, and Link dipped below and around the flow, bringing the sword up in another cut that would have opened the Calamity from its thigh to its armpit.

Ganon's sword lashed out, smashing against the blade of evil's bane, and the impact sent a shockwave up Link's arm. A hand easily larger than his head reached for him, fingers twitching as if to crush his skull, and he ducked under it, bringing the sword up again, cutting into the inside of Ganon's elbow. The Calamity roared, bringing its own weapon down, and Link leapt away as if dancing, feet barely touching the ground as the Malice-soaked blade smashed into the floor.

Link stopped just outside of Ganon's reach, turning to face it again, both hands wrapped around the Master Sword's hilt. The beast watched him with burning eyes, staggered, growled with a sound deeper and more terrible than the rumbling of the earth or sky.

How many times had he done this? How many times had he experienced this _precise_ moment? Four times? _Five_ , now? He was losing track. How many hours had it been? Hylia, had it been _days_? His arms would barely obey him, his fingers nearly fused into place and his legs shaking with a fatigue so intense he didn't know how to stop it.

The Calamity sniffed at the air, as if scenting his weakness. Fine. Let it think him weak.

It didn't matter. Zelda was coming. The sword had told him. Zelda was coming, and with her she would bring the Champions, and together they would put an end to this.

Together.

The Calamity roared, rising to its full height again, and raised its sword.

He moved with all of his strength, squeezing speed and surety out of limbs that insisted they had none left. Before the beast had even raised its weapon, he thrust the blade of the Master Sword into the soft flesh just above its groin. It made a high, terrible sound as its sword fell out of its hands, and then he tore the Master Sword up, sideways, _out_.

There was a torrent of Malice and blood and fire and this too he danced away from as Ganon fell to its knees, and then to its hands. Its innards, so different from the insides of a living thing yet still analogous, poured onto the floor between its limbs. Its massive, horned head turned to face him, eyes still glowing, and it opened its mouth as if to show him the forest of fangs that it kept hidden there.

It lunged for him with its teeth. He stepped easily around it, scoring its left eye with the sword. The beast howled as he took two more steps, standing in its blind spot as it writhed, and then he brought the Master Sword down on the back of Ganon's neck.

The Calamity's head hit the ground, its impact shaking the floor. The body followed moments after, its shoulder catching on one of the twisted horns. The tree-like legs kicked, seeking purchase, as if to rise, and the arms unbelievably _reached_ , the right for Ganon's sword and the left for _Link_.

He lashed out with the Master Sword, and two of Ganon's severed fingers fell to the ground before him.

The arm fell. The body collapsed. Blood and Malice pooled on the ground as if a reservoir had been opened. He stood, waiting, stance orthodox, controlling his breathing, ready for it to rise again—and then all of it, head and body and fingers and sword, burst into flame.

He did not lower the sword. He turned his back on the beast, taking steps away as boiling miasma flowed out from it, reaching up to the ankles of his boots. It did not burn, as if it did not touch him at all.

He took the position he knew he must take, to be ready if Ganon were to try to flee this place in the moments to come. To be prepared for when the beast rose again—because it _would_ rise, again and again and again, never truly dying until it was finally sealed away.

The fire coalesced into a burning darkness, and out of this darkness stared eyes, dozens of them, then hundreds, then two.

The last few times they had reached this point, Ganon had been conversational. Mocking, lying, seeking weakness. Now, though, it did not speak. It only laughed.

Link sank to one knee, waiting as the Calamity gathered its power. Waiting for the tide of darkness.

He would not fall.

Zelda was coming.

* * *

The mist receded all at once, replaced by clarity and an upwelling of light. Zelda extinguished the torch, placing it back into her pack as they entered the Korok Forest.

She had thought she understood what a forest was, only a day ago. In fact, she had _thought_ she understood what a forest was when she hunted boar between the trees of the Great Plateau. Walking through the Lost Woods had not changed that understanding; the differences were down to its being a fey place, a place where the children of the wood made home and tricks and games and artifice, so that deviations from her understanding could be compartmentalized, rationalized, reasoned away.

Now Zelda saw that she was but a child, seeing the world with her own eyes for the first time.

The Korok Forest was bursting with life, so intense and so pervasive that she did not need the goddess's power to see the lines of vitality running through that place. Ancient trees as big as houses sprouted out of the ground at irregular, insistently organic intervals, and their boughs shook with the weight of leaves and light that they bore. Pools of clear water stood in places through the wood, and out of these waters rose plants she did not recognize, covered in seed pods that glowed with a gentle light that would make it easy to navigate in this place even when the sun was down. There were flowers here she had never seen before, and enormous _roots_ running back to a tree so colossal that she stopped and stared in awe for long moments before remembering herself, remembering Paya, remembering their shared purpose. How long it took to drag her eyes from its mighty limbs, that reached out so far that they must have hovered over the edge of the Lost Woods itself. How long it took her to realize that there was more here, that there were invisible things that she could not see unless she opened herself completely.

Then her eyes fell on the pedestal where, once, a sword had stood at rest.

She walked to it. Stood on that raised platform, surrounded by blue flowers that brought tears to her eyes, though she did not know why. Only then, in that place, before the spot where the Master Sword had been at home for its long centuries of sleep, did she release Paya's hand.

"Princess," her attendant said, and she could feel the awe and the wonder and the complete lack of fear that Paya felt because it was in her, too. Paya was looking up at the enormous tree and Zelda's eyes followed hers. "I think we are not alone."

What a thing to say; who could stand in this place and believe themselves alone? Who could believe that they would ever truly be alone, ever again, so confronted with the intensity and insistence of life?

But then the tree began to move. It was the size of a castle keep, and more, and its bark unquestionably thicker than she was tall, so that the sound it made as it shifted was like wood bending, bending, not quite cracking. Was she a fool, to think it looked like it had a face?

Brows of darker-colored bark drew up and apart from each other, not quite revealing the place where the tree's eyes would have been. It shifted, and she saw that more bark of the same color stretched across the "face" of the tree, forming what looked like a mustache hanging over a lower lip and strong chin, and these set beneath a long, broad nose. A rudimentary face, in its way, but on the staggering scale of the tree it gave the impression of looking up at a slowly awakening god.

The tree gave no outward sign that it had turned its attention on her; she _felt_ its focus, like a weight of warmth and coolness, like the surety of solid ground. She thought to draw on the power, but in that moment knew that she could not.

"Ahhh," the tree said, "you have finally arrived, Princess of Hyrule. I have been waiting for a long time."

"Waiting?" It was all she could manage; the strangeness of the world was not so strange to her, and the ancient spirit of this place (because it _was_ ancient, she could feel its power and its age coursing through the air and the brush and Hylia it was _so much_ of the forest) was in some ways no stranger than Naydra or Dinraal. Still, that it knew she was coming spoke to some deep-seated part of her.

"Yes," the tree said. "Forgive me. I am the guardian of these woods; in times past, some have called me the Deku Tree." As the Deku Tree spoke, the forest began filling with a sound like tiny bells jingling—Zelda looked up, and something inside of her blossomed with warmth as her expectations were met. The Koroks were peeking from behind the roots of trees, floating down from the sky on their spinning flowers, jumping on top of rocks to stare at her with naked curiosity. "The Koroks, the children of the forest, have decided to call me their father."

"Great Deku Tree," she said, bowing, "we are thankful for your gracious reception. Though we are here by the invite of the Koroks, we were not prepared for the beauty or the quiet of these woods. It—"

"No more of that," he said, gentle but firm. "The women of the royal family have never stood on ceremony with the children of the forest, and I would not have you be the first."

She stopped, blinked, stood straight, looked to Paya who could offer her nothing. Being in the presence of this power was nearly too much for the other woman, Zelda thought; it was like being in the middle of a legend. Zelda turned her attention back to the Deku Tree, raised her face to look up at his. "Have you known my family for very long?"

"You could say that." An amused warmth beneath that, punctuated by peals of delighted laughter from a small handful of the Koroks. "So long as the royal family has stood in the name of the goddess, Hylia, so too has the forest stood with the royal family. I was the guardian of the sword that seals the darkness, for the millennia where it waited for the hand that would draw it. A century and more ago, I was here when it was pulled free."

Yes. Yes, of course he would have been. Of course, the Hero had come here in the days before he had been called that, answering the call that was demanded by his strength and his courage. It was only natural: probably the Koroks had been visible to him, and he had been received warmly. Still, the question came to mind, forcing itself forward, because she had to hear more, she had to _know_ : "You met Link?"

"I met him, yes. I watched over him as he was tested and found worthy, too. He stood where you are standing now, before the pedestal that held the sword. I remember that moment clearly, as if I were still watching it happen. I think that, if you wanted, you could remember that moment too."

"W-what?" To recall a memory that was not hers—that didn't even make sense.

"Mighty is the memory etched by the awakening of the Hero's spirit. You have the awareness of the goddess. Reach out to the pedestal, touch the place where the sword met its master, and I am sure that you will be able to grasp hold of that moment as firmly as he did."

She swallowed, realized that she was fearful because she believed. _What am I afraid of? Of him? Of finding out what he felt? Of feeling as he did, the fullness of him, of experiencing what it is like to be him? How terrible can understanding be?_

Paya's hand touched her shoulder. Her attendant said nothing, would have thought it a terrible breach of rightness _to_ say anything; she just nodded in a supportive affirmative. That nod said _I will be here for you, no matter what happens. I will keep you anchored_.

She laid her hand on Paya's, squeezed at her fingers, gently lifted the hand away. She turned to face the setting where the Master Sword had rested for thousands of years. Reaching inside of herself, grabbing hold of the molten light that was the power of her birthright, she found that she was shaking—not just _her_ , the amnesiac, but also her, the princess, and her, the oracle of the goddess. The very foundation of everything she stood upon quaked, her soul set to rumbling in her frame. Every fiber of her wanted this; every fiber of her twisted in fear of it.

Zelda reached out with the power of Hylia, feeling at the absence of the sword.

She remembered.

* * *

From the north, Link stepped back into the clearing before the Deku Tree. The Koroks followed him in a dancing train, singing nonsense songs and laughing and waving sticks around, having mock fights with one another. They mimicked him, he saw; there were little flourishes to their movements, here and there, that reminded him of recruits trying to copy the way he held a sword and shield. The Koroks seemed more successful, almost. He smiled at them as they danced around and away from his legs, and they whooped and hollered and ran ahead in their strange, turning walk.

"I see that you have returned." The Deku Tree's voice was soft and controlled, but Link had been around him for long enough now to recognize that the spirit was pleased, even happy. Its enormous eyebrows gathered together and lowered, suggesting deep thought and consternation as Link stepped onto the platform where he had first spoken to the guardian days ago. "Based on the demeanour of your stalwart companions, may I assume that you were successful?"

The Koroks answered before he could: " _YEAH!_ " "You should have seen it!" "He had his sword, and it was like—" "Pow! Wham!" "Everything went flying!" "And he won! He won!" "Mr. Hero!" "Mr. Hero!" "Mr. Hero!" And they chanted that name for him as a body, the hundreds of them singing his praises as if he had stepped out of a storybook.

He nodded up at the Deku Tree; anything he said would have been unheard over the voices of the Koroks.

"I am glad," the Deku Tree said so loudly that the cheers of the Koroks slowly receded, "that you are victorious. In every era, the trial undertaken by the one who would hold the sword that seals the darkness is unique to the searcher. That you have overcome this is proof of your mettle. Tell me, though: did you find this challenge trying?"

In answer, he held up the remains of his weapon: the hilt of a sword, finely wrought, carried by those servants of the royal family who had risen above the knighthood. The cross guard and grip were good, solid steel, the grip wrapped in leather and the cross laid with gold leaf that had been blasted apart. The hilt surviving had been a surprise, in the moment; the blade itself had shattered so totally that its shards had fallen on the ground like raindrops.

"So, a trial that demanded you use the fullness of your strength. Good. Those are the only trials that we can trust." The Koroks cheered again, apparently at nothing except for the fact that Link and the Deku Tree were talking, and the guardian of the forest waited for their high-pitched roar to subside. "Still. Now you are without the means to defend yourself."

A hush fell, nearly total, and the Koroks grew very still, as if they had taken root. Link looked back at them, but none of them moved; only the twitching of their leafy faces gave any impression that they were alive at all.

"That you were able to find your way here at all spoke to your potential before we ever met. You are an accomplished knight, who in any other era would be the pride of his kingdom. But there are times that the world demands more than mere accomplishment. Darkness is rising again; Ganon's power is seeping back into the world. The monsters that rise from this day forward shall make the small incursions that the royal army now faces seem like nothing at all, in comparison. If things progress as they are, Ganon _will_ return."

The wind blew gently through the boughs of the trees in the clearing, bringing to Link the smell of the Lost Woods, of the plains beyond. Was his horse still waiting for him, he wondered? Surely the rest of his unit was tending to it well. They'd had orders to wait for two weeks; it had not been even half that time. Would they be waiting for him, at the castle? Waiting for news of what was to come?

"Since you arrived here, you have proven yourself the possessor of a hero's portion of power, of wisdom, and of courage. But, heed me now, Link, child of Hyrule." At the shift in the Deku Tree's tone Link stood straighter, set his shoulders back, looked up. "All of these, even gathered together, are as nothing. They are proof of what you _can_ do, but the question of what you _can_ do is unimportant, _meaningless_ , in comparison to what you are _willing_ to do. You might be strong enough to move mountains, wise enough to know when to use your strength, and courageous enough to face down the doom of nations unblinking, but none of that will avail you or the world unless you are willing to act."

The sun shining through the trees placed the Master Sword at the bottom of a tilted shaft of light, the dark blue, almost purple, of its hilt reflected that light with a luster that he could compare to no material he'd ever seen. The yellow jewel set in its hilt, likewise. More than those, however, he found himself staring at the blade. It was steel, or he thought it was, but it was more than that. He had been unsure when he first arrived in the forest but looking at it now he was certain: the blade glowed with a light it could barely contain. That light was the promise of the sword.

"The Master Sword is not a weapon. It may be used as a weapon, and the enemy knows it as a weapon, but at its heart it is more than that: it is the very soul of the Hero. By drawing it, you will be taking on the weight of the Hero's burden. Every person in Hyrule and beyond will live and die by your ability to bear it. Thus has it been for every Hero throughout ages uncounted, since the dawning of time."

Here, only here, did Link pause. The king—and the princess herself—had seen his company off in their quest for the sword. He remembered the gravity of the king's eyes, and the forlorn hope in the princess's. She had seemed so sad, he thought, and at the time he had wondered why. In fact, he still did. Did she have no faith that they would bring back the sword? Did she fear that destiny would cheat the kingdom, the world, of its defender as she had been cheated of her birthright? She had never looked directly at him, then, her eyes taking in the expedition all at once, but still he felt her regard.

The world, the Deku Tree had said. Everyone and everything. Every Hylian, and Zora, and Goron, and Gerudo, and Rito, and Korok, and plant, and horse, and deer. Every spirit of the land. Their hopes were invested in this sword, in what it represented. Could he possibly hold such a thing? Never mind the soul of the Hero, he didn't care about that, not really: could he presume to shoulder the hopes of all those people? Could he bear the weight of _their_ souls, too?

"What will you do, Link?" The Deku Tree's question presumed no answer.

Princess Zelda's eyes were still in his mind, looking down at him, around him, as he rode away from the castle. She was waiting for his return. For the hope he could bring.

He stepped forward, wrapped his hand around the Master Sword's hilt. There was a surge inside of him, the sword reaching out to him, the vastness of its power crashing against him, as if seeking his worthiness.

Link pulled the sword free, and it was lightning in his hands. He held it aloft, and the Koroks were still, and the Deku Tree sighed, relieved of a long-held anxiety.

And a voice whispered in the corners of his mind, "Greetings, Master Link."

* * *

Link came to with a gasp.

Why had he thought of that, just now? How long ago had that been?

The chamber of the Calamity's prison rumbled with the force of the power of the beast, making the floor shake beneath Link from his place where he kneeled on the floor. It had not fled in the moment of his reminiscence; it was still there, gathering power, preparing to try to kill him.

But, no. It was smiling, too, in the folds of the burning darkness that composed its silhouette.

"Dreaming, are you?" Ganon whispered, its whisper shaking the foundations of the earth. "Am I boring you now, _boy_? Are you growing _complacent_? Or," and here it chuckled, and its mirth was like that of a man; no spirit, no demon could make a sound that cruel, "are you finally reaching your limit?" Its power gathered to it, bubbling and hissing and burning and crackling, the darkness at the heart of the chamber growing so intense that it hurt the eyes to look at. "Are you finally ready to surrender?"

* * *

The power carried her along the paths of his memory, showing her the recesses of his awareness in ways she would never have thought possible. Was that an invasion? An evil thing, to have experienced his memory?

 _He did not intend for me to see that moment_ , the amnesiac thought.

 _He would have agreed to anything that would help me understand him and myself_ , the oracle rejoined.

 _He thought of me,_ the princess said in that shared space where one woman was three, however tenuous the separation between them had grown, and the whole of Zelda stopped to reflect on this knowledge.

He was there. She had felt his mind through memory and in that infinite space she could feel him, not separated by physical distance but by the interminable gap between any two souls. He was _there_. He was resting. The strain of battle was on him, layered on top of itself over and over and over like geological strata burying the body of the past, and she did not understand how he would bear that weight.

 _Can I help him?_

 _Can I lend him my strength?_

 _I must let him know he is not alone_.

Zelda reached for the Hero across that infinite space, seeking, hoping.

* * *

His legs nearly collapsed under him as Link hauled himself to his feet, but still he stood, the Master Sword in both of his hands. He raised the sword that sealed the darkness, and its blade flared with its own power bolstered by the strength of his will. He breathed and found that it did not relieve him at all, every movement of his chest a gasp that did not dispel the feeling of drowning. His arms shook, and he held the Master Sword aloft.

Ganon roared, and the darkness rolled out with a sound like thunder, and it washed over Link and through him and the pain was indescribable, and he screamed with the whole of his body as the hatred of Hyrule's ancient enemy sought to tear him to pieces, as it had so many times before. No part of it was different; no part of it had changed.

Except that he met it standing.

* * *

She touched Link's mind in the same instant that the Calamity sought to destroy him.

The Malice did not touch her. Ganon did not sense her. She merely brushed against the surface of Link's thoughts, hoping to strengthen him, reassure him, and as she did so she was struck with the full force of the pain that he felt in that moment.

She was not prepared. She could not even process it. She was sent hurtling from the place of her power, back to her physical body, which collapsed on the dais where the Master Sword had stood at rest.

* * *

Zelda was asleep on a bed of leaves—not a pile of leaves but an actual bed, mattress and sheets and blanket and frame, all constructed _of_ leaves. Paya had had her concerns, but after testing it herself had found it both sound and comfortable beyond what she would have assumed possible. The Korok responsible for it was asleep while standing on a stump, not very far away. A smaller, narrower bed had been set up next to Zelda's somewhat larger one.

"I made that one just for you," the sleepy Korok had said. "The Deku Tree said Miss Princess would be traveling with someone, so I wanted to make sure you'd be comfortable too."

Paya sat, watching the light fading outside of the Deku Tree. Torches lit the interior to a degree bright enough to allow easy, safe movement, but dim enough to not interfere with the princess's rest. Other Koroks stood in other nooks, surrounded by piles of fruit or mushrooms or even _arrows_ , but Paya paid them no mind for now. There was no harm to be feared from the Korok Forest; of this she had been convinced. She only had to be wary of memory. And, perhaps, of herself.

Her hands were shaking too much to write in her diary. She kept thinking of how Zelda had looked, for that one moment before she fell. The extremity of the pain written on her face. Even the Deku Tree had been shocked; the Koroks had flown into a panic. She'd carried her princess here, inside the trunk of the Deku Tree, at the heart of the safest place in all Hyrule.

 _For all that safety can even mean_ , she thought to herself. She might sleep less than usual, tonight.

So, she sat in silence, listening to the crackling of the fire, the mumbling of the sleeping Korok, and always watching Zelda. The princess had a bruise on one cheek from where she'd fallen forward, and her color had not fully recovered to its normal hue, but she looked completely peaceful. Almost as if the episode outside had never happened.

In the distance she heard someone begin playing on an instrument, a woodwind with a high, clear sound. She did not know the song, but she stopped and listened to it anyway. It was… not sad, exactly, but nostalgic. Slow. Hinting that there was sadness to come, that sadness might be part of everything, but that in this moment, here, now, there was peace.

"Paya," Zelda said, and Paya nearly jumped to her feet, but Zelda's voice said she was half-dreaming. "What is that? The… music."

Paya stopped, considered, tried to pick out the particulars of the sound, weighed it against what she knew of the stories about music played by the forest children. "I think it is an ocarina."

"My mother used to sing me that song," Zelda said, and then she drifted to sleep again.

Paya stared at her. Then she looked out into the night, listening to the high, soothing tones.

The night passed quietly, and eventually she took her rest.

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE**_ : Oh I'm definitely going to enjoy writing this next bit. I hope that you're anticipating it, too.


	29. Korok Forest

By morning, Zelda had forgotten the music. In fact, she had forgotten everything after the moment where she had reached out to touch Link's mind; she had an impression that she had experienced some pain but could not recall it well enough to say for sure. Selective amnesia, perhaps? Did that suggest that her _general_ amnesia was, itself, a defense mechanism? She had suspected that more than once, but the question came up again and she was left wondering about it for most of the morning.

When Zelda rose, the first thing she did was visit the other nooks in the Deku Tree's interior with Paya; she was surprised, though not very much, to find that the Koroks had prepared for her coming by converting these spaces into makeshift shops. The idea that the Koroks normally participated in anything resembling commerce was preposterous on its face—they could subsist on sunlight and water, Zelda suspected, or perhaps even less than that—but if this was a game to them then they were playing it for the sake of her comfort. The shop full of mushrooms she had bought out without really thinking about it, because all of the gathered specimens _were_ very useful, and when she'd handed her rupees over to the proprietor it had thanked her loudly, walked back into a corner—the jingling of its steps was made louder by the currency it could barely hold—and dropped all of the rupees onto the floor. It swept them together into a somewhat neater pile, nodded at its handiwork, and returned to its place. Zelda and Paya watched this ritual in amused silence.

The second shop was full of food and arrows, and when Zelda saw that there were multiple bundles of five shock arrows she tested one with her fingertip. It insisted on its own reality by sending a shock up her arm that nearly made her shoulder seize.

"Where did you get these?" she asked, shaking her hand and fighting the urge to blow cool air across her finger.

"I found them!" It beamed behind its sad leaf mask.

"Oh. Yes, that makes sense." She tried to imagine where it had found this wealth of weaponry, spent several seconds deciding whether to press the point. She reached for her wallet instead.

"Zelda," Paya said, her voice low enough that the Korok probably couldn't hear, "we are spending quite a lot here." She had apparently assumed that Zelda had decided to buy out the stock of this store, too, or at least its arrows. Well. If that's what she thought, she was right.

"That may be. Still, we have a bit of a surplus, don't we?"

"Surplus? My apologies, but I don't understand."

"When Robbie made the Ancient Armor and all of those weapons for me, he never charged me anything—even though the cost listed in the Ancient Oven for all of those items would have totalled as much as a small house. I had been gathering gemstones in anticipation of an expense of that magnitude, but it never came up! So, we have a surplus of value, don't we? I might as well spend _some_ of it."

"You might need those rupees later." Not _we_ , Zelda noticed.

"Perhaps! But that's why I never miss the opportunity to shatter an ore deposit. I think I can keep us flush, should we start to run low, so we have plenty to trade here." A thought occurred to her, and she paused before putting it into the air between them: "Still, it's clear that the Koroks are not used to dealing with merchants. I wonder what they'll do with the rupees when we're done."

The proprietor of the General Shoppe, who was standing _much_ more closely behind them than Zelda had thought, said "I'm gonna bury them!"

Zelda and Paya both stared at the long-faced Korok. Zelda prompted, "Bury them?"

"Yeah! Or maybe hide them. You know? I'll put one under a rock. Then somebody will pick up the rock and find it, and they'll say, 'Hey! A rupee! Who put that there?' And you know what?" It waved one of its arm stubs toward its face. "It was me. I put it there."

There was no more deliberation; they bought out the contents of the General Shoppe, too.

* * *

Now that she knew that the Deku Tree's face was, in fact, a face, Zelda could see it and attribute bearing and emotion to it. It struck her as fabulously wise, like the drawing a particularly skilled child might produce if asked to draw a person with deep experience and knowledge. There was more to the Deku Tree's face than that, though; he was not very animated, the guardian of the woods, but he still had expressions. They simply passed over his face slowly enough that most people wouldn't be able to register them.

Zelda stepped again onto the raised platform where the Master Sword had stood, Paya following close behind her, and looked up at the Deku Tree. He did not immediately acknowledge her, which would not have struck her as strange—who could say what was usual to a god of the woods?—but some part of her senses was still awake, reaching out, filling in the gaps in her own thoughts. The Deku Tree was exerting some great effort; unless she was mistaken, he was in pain.

"Great Deku Tree," she said, and his eyes did not open but his face shifted, on a scale large enough that she could see the change. "What troubles you?"

The Deku Tree huffed in amusement, and his pain was obvious even in that sound. "Not a thought to the pain that you suffered yesterday, Princess? Have you no other questions for me?"

"Other questions can wait," she said. She tried to be firm, as ridiculous as that felt. "What's wrong?"

"The wood," he said, and the shadow of his pain hung over his words, "is a place of refuge. Thus has it been since long before the Calamity; thus has it been, always. My power is that power." The wind rustled his leaves far above their heads, making a sound like heavy rainfall. "Ganon has been seeking to spread its power throughout the land for a century, and the Hero cannot contain that power. It has fallen to the wood to be the refuge of Hyrule entire; to the Koroks, to keep the Calamity from propagating its Malice."

The sound of an ancient song sung on a mountaintop rang in her thoughts. "So that was what was happening on Mt. Lanayru. The Koroks were using the power of the forest to combat the Malice that had infected Naydra."

"As observant as I expected," the Deku Tree answered. He was silent for several seconds. Then: "The Korok Forest is the safest place in Hyrule. It is a place for you to rest and recover, but it is also more than that. Here, if nowhere else, you are safe from the eyes of the Calamity. Here, if nowhere else, you may be the entirety of yourself without Ganon's attentions falling on you."

"The entirety…" The scope of what that meant seemed absurd, but she also understood that it was absolutely true. She could hold the fullness of the power here and Ganon would not see it at all. That thought nearly made her reach down into herself and seize hold of her strength, the weight of her curiosity tugging insistently at her will, but... no. The curiosity was anchored somewhere else, first. She squared her shoulders and looked up at the Deku Tree squarely. "Great Deku Tree, please. There were so many more Koroks living in this wood a century ago. You are in pain so terrible that I can feel echoes of it inside myself. What has happened? What is happening? Are the children of the forest in danger?"

The shadow of pain did not pass from the Deku Tree's voice or from its face, but he turned his attention to Zelda, wholly, for the first time in a day. That regard made her realize she had been a fool; she could no more read the expressions of that ancient face than she could the expression of Death Mountain. Would she understand better when she held Hylia's power? She suspected she would.

The Deku Tree said, "You will not stop seeking an answer until I give one to you; it has always been so, for those bearing Hylia's blood, but I think it has never been truer than for you." He sighed, seemed to gather himself. "To assuage your fears—no. The children of the forest have not dwindled in the intervening century. They are children, and I would wither and dry before I let a single one of them come to harm. Ah, but that is not as deep as your fear goes, is it? You will not be satisfied until you know what is different compared to yesterday, and why, and you will not know to your satisfaction until you perceive it directly. Perhaps that is well. Open your mind to mine, and I will show you."

She should have been ashamed, she knew, for forcing a further burden upon the ancient spirit who strained with the effort to protect the land that had suffered in her absence, to heap higher the troubles he supported in his boughs. Still, she wasn't; when she grabbed some small part of the power, just enough to open up her senses and widen her thoughts, she was glad. The presence of the Deku Tree was enormous, on a magnitude not unlike a god, but his gentleness was so pronounced that she feared his attentions not at all. She reached out to him, and their minds touched, and she saw.

* * *

Atop the Sanctum of Hyrule Castle, where the ruined thrones of the royal family lay in rubble, a storm raged. All black and purple, shot through with lightning of an even darker hue, the whirling mass of Malice breathed like a living thing, seeking to press against the boundaries set upon it. If left unchecked it would have spread through the sky, blanketing the land from above as the Bleeding Earth blanketed it from below.

A century past, pools of Malice had infested Hyrule like the boils brought on by some long-extinct disease. The return of the Calamity's power had scattered its hatred in waves, and almost as soon as it had landed the Malice had begun to _spread_ , eating away at soil and life. In another time, the Malice would have been rendered inert by the power of the blood of Hylia; but this was not that time, not that life, and the Hero's power could not be so leveraged.

Life had responded, and the children of the forest had gone out in droves, bringing with them the light that had stood in every land before demons had walked the surface of the earth. With light and magic and dancing and singing they had surrounded the Malice, had channeled the power of the forest into it, and bit by bit they had swept the darkness away. The Calamity could not sense them; they moved and acted against it without it even knowing that its hold on the land had grown narrower. For a century they had worked; now they, in their hundreds, danced atop the highest parapets of the castle, filling the air with light and noise. All that remained was here, and they would hold it.

They didn't sing just for the Malice, of course; they sang for the Hero, too. They sang high and loud, so he would always know they were cheering for him and they believed in him. When the sword raised its voice they joined in, singing the Song of the Hero to help him remember how brave he was, and how important it was to be brave. They hoped he heard them. They would keep going even if he didn't.

That was the song they were singing now, one hundred years later. They had joined their voices to the sword's what seemed like a very, very long time ago. They could sing for hours or days without stopping, but holding to one song was difficult for them; their attention wandered, and they wanted to sing other things. Each of them was focused because they knew they had to sing for Mr. Hero, but each of them felt the time pass.

At last, one Korok stopped singing, and turned to the next one on its right.

"It's never taken this long before!" it said, and the singing stopped in a wave as this was repeated and spread throughout the group. Their green light remained, but they had stopped singing and dancing. Here was a problem they had never encountered.

"Maybe… maybe he's tired!"

"Maybe we should sing louder!"

"We're singing _really loud_."

"Something might be wrong!"

The storm raged overhead, but they barely heard it. They looked at each other as the thought processed differently for each of them. Something _might_ be wrong. The roof of the Sanctum had been torn away by one of Ganon's rages decades ago, so all of them could see the dark pit that ended in the chamber where the battle raged. It was too far down to see, though not to hear.

So, they heard it when Ganon roared, drowning out the song of the sword. They had heard that sound many times, and each of those many times they had trembled, and this time was no exception. Their faces quivered on the fronts of their bodies, and each of them huddled with their neighbors for physical security. The protection of the forest was on them, but in this moment that protection seemed small.

Then Link screamed, his voice one long note of pain and exhaustion and defiance.

As a body they looked around at each other. They had heard Link scream before, too, but never like that. Never so much pain, so much feeling. Something was different, even if they couldn't articulate what. Something was wrong.

"What do we do? Do we get help?" "It's been a whole day! The singing isn't working! Mr. Hero isn't getting back up!"

"Is he going to lose? Is Ganon going to win?" "Mr. Hero _always_ wins!" "What if he doesn't win?"

One of them, its leaf small and green and shaped like a single petal from a cherry blossom, walked over to the edge. All of its fellows hushed again, watched, listened. The roar faded. The scream faded. The song continued. The hero did not rise.

The single Korok said, "We have to help Mr. Hero!"

Then it jumped into the hole.

A second followed it. A fourth. A fourteenth.

"We have to help Mr. Hero!"

"Hold on, Mr. Hero! We're coming!"

"Mr. Hero!" "Mr. Hero!" "Mr. Hero!"

As a crowd, in their hundreds, the Koroks leaped into the darkness, descending on spinning leaves or on nothing at all, shouting their courage in children's voices as they fell toward the sounds of apocalypse.

* * *

Zelda grabbed hold of the power in two enormous fistfuls and thrust them out directly into the Deku Tree, seeking to bolster his strength, to lend him the power he might need, to make sure that whatever was about to happen did not turn into catastrophe.

And then she slammed into a wall, so firm and vast that she began to understand, deep within herself, how powerful the Deku Tree actually was.

"I believe you will need all of your strength for yourself, Princess of Hyrule." The Deku Tree's voice was strained, but he still managed to sound amused. "Pray, do not squander it in seeking to bolster mine."

She was still holding the power, not within herself but ready to use like a tool or a weapon, and in physical space she was bathed in golden light that made the air around her seem darker by comparison. Paya was staring at her, slack-jawed, but Zelda could not pay mind to that.

"Please let me help you. Please. If anything should happen to any of them, I—"

"Nothing will happen to them." The tree's voice was firm, now, and his boughs seemed to dance over his head. "Though I will be drained by what is to come, no child of the forest will suffer so long as I live. Do not concern yourself; I have been protecting these woods and the Koroks for many, many, many years." A pause, as he considered what to say next—or perhaps he was gathering his strength? It was impossible to tell. "I should hope I will be able to last for the weeks or months it will take for you to be ready to face Ganon."

"If the situation is so urgent, if Link is beginning to falter and the Koroks are coming to his aid," she said so that Paya would be able to understand, "then should I not go to do battle _now_? Are we not running out of time?"

"No." That word echoed across the entire forest, stilling the air and all the noises of the wood. "No. Link will not falter, yet. He suffers, which frightens the children of the forest, but he will not fall. Some change is taking place in his battle with Ganon, but I have faith that the hero has not yet reached the limit of his endurance. More than that, though, you are not yet fully awakened to your power. If you were as strong today as you were a century ago, I would not have been able to close myself to you just now."

Zelda let go of the power, and the light around her went out. She tried not to slouch, but reality pulled down at her more surely than the weight of stones. "And Ganon is far more terrible than when it was unleashed." Yes. She wouldn't be able to do battle with Ganon by herself, even with all of Hylia's power. She still needed the Champions. Whatever Link was suffering, she had to leave him to it. Whatever the Koroks were risking, she had to…

She shivered, thinking of them crying out as they leaped into a battle they could not possibly understand. Ancient spirits they might have been, but when the Deku Tree called them children he was _right_. How they had spoken to her, how they had spoken _of_ Link, haunted her.

"Great Deku Tree, why are you doing this? Why are _they_ doing this? If you believe that Link will continue fighting regardless, why drain yourself so terribly? Why let the Koroks… if not risk themselves, then be witness to whatever horror is taking place in the castle? Why not call them away?"

"They would not leave him, even if I were to command it; and I would not."

" _Why_?"

Slowly, with great effort, the Deku Tree once more turned the fullness of his attention toward the princess and her guard. She had the sense that he had split himself between two places, and it was exhausting for him to talk to her at all.

"I told you before that this place is safe, and that you can fully awaken here. If you want to understand why, allow yourself to _be_ yourself."

The urge to protest clawed its way up her throat, saw the vastness of the guardian of the forest, and died. As powerful as he was, he had existed here for a century without drawing Ganon's attention; he had, almost without doubt, presided over the ancient battles with the Calamity. Who in all the world would have the perspective to advise her, to be sure of what they were saying, if not he?

 _I am afraid_ , she reflected, _but not of Ganon, not right now. I am afraid of stepping over something, crossing a threshold that I will not able to return from._

The Deku Tree leveraged the fullness of his ancient strength, and on the other side of his efforts the Koroks defied the darkness, and she could not imagine it.

 _If I do as the Deku Tree suggests, I may not be able to be myself again afterward. I may not even think to question it. The power can change me._

Paya stood next to her, close to her, as if to catch her should she fall—or to grab hold of her should she begin to float away. She didn't need Hylia's power or awareness to read what her friend was thinking; Paya's hope, and trust, and enduring faith were written in every line of her face, in the set of her eyes.

 _The power_ has _changed me. I have used it in its fullness thrice, and anticipate thrice again; what is once more?_

Zelda closed her eyes and reached down into herself, grabbing hold of the power. She encompassed all of it, would have _been_ all of it, but she hesitated. Why was she hesitating? This was more than just fear of the moment or fear of change; she was on the edge of something else, some truth that the Deku Tree had alluded to, and at the moment where it mattered most she was not sure if she wanted to see.

"Zelda," said the Deku Tree, "to know why the Koroks seek to protect the hero, you must understand how they relate to every hero through the ages."

The power was a sun, warm and nourishing in her arms, and its light ran through the channels of her awareness, illuminating her, illuminating the world.

"The hero has always protected the wood, and the wood has always protected the hero; it has been thus through time immemorial, since long before the rise of the Calamity. The hero's raiment, for eons, has served as a symbol of this fellowship."

She hadn't intended to take the power into herself, and for a moment wondered if the power had reached out for her; but no, it did not do such things. She had grabbed hold of it without knowing. A reflex, perhaps? An unspoken need which she could not, in good conscience, deny? Conscious of herself now, she drew the fullness of Hylia's strength into herself, held it, felt as if she contained the fullness of the world.

"The hero is not a spirit of the wood, but the wood knows the hero. Whether they be born on plains of grass, in the heart of roaring mountains, beneath cool waters, nestled atop shifting sands, or in the very sky itself…"

The world unfolded around her, though her eyes remained closed. The course of life was plain to her, the energy of life itself like molten gold that filled the background of her mind. The Deku Tree was as vast as Death Mountain before her, his ancient roots reaching so deep into the earth that his life force could not be easily distinguished from the living spirit of the land itself. The Koroks were bundles of stars wearing wood like a mask, and she understood that they had not always been this way, though they loved this shape perhaps best of all the ones they'd known. Paya reached out to her, not with her hand but with her heart, and Zelda reached out in return, letting Hylia's awareness fill the Sheikah girl's senses. Paya's sharp intake of breath was a ripple that spread through the world. Whatever happened, the two of them would experience it together.

Something was coming. As her awareness filled out, coloring in the spaces that were left by her physical senses, she felt… something. Something enormous.

The Deku Tree finished, "Every hero is a child of the forest."

Uncounted voices called out to her, "Open your eyes."

She did.

* * *

In their hundreds they were spread before her: mostly men, mostly Hylian, mostly wearing green, but people from every tribe and every walk of life, wearing every color the gods had seen fit with which to paint the world. A Goron wearing green-painted armor with his arms crossed stood beneath the shade of the forest canopy, far from the mountain that had produced him; a Gerudo with sad eyes took in the world for a second time, the weight of her battle with the Calamity still dragging at her shoulders; a cetacean Zora woman whose skin was the color of evergreen needles nearly blended into the foliage. They were echoes of the past made solid, as if they had reverberated with each other and with her until echoes recalled the forms that had given birth to them.

Every one of them, every hero since the first, was gathered under the boughs of the Deku Tree.

After a few moments, while holding as much of the power and the perspective of Hylia as she was capable of, Zelda remembered to breathe.

"Here is the secret," the Deku Tree said, and though his voice was strained Zelda could hear beneath the crude reality of his effort, to the very heart of who he was, and he was vast and powerful. "Here is the truth that lies behind every battle with Ganon, and those who would be like Ganon, throughout time."

"No battle is fought alone," Paya said, because she shared in Zelda's perspective and was quicker to go along certain paths than Zelda herself, even now. "There is always the history of the battle behind us. The… the _memory_ of those who came before."

"The legacy," Zelda said, and when the words left her mouth the Deku Tree sighed in relief and approval.

Those words were all she could manage of herself; she had taken the fullness of Hylia's perspective, Hylia's _memory_ , into her own thoughts. That perspective told her that the change was not permanent or did not _have_ to be if she did not wish it so, but faced with the totality of the sight before her she did not have space in her mind to care. Memory flooded back to her, and she—she the goddess, she the oracle, she who had fought the Calamity throughout the eons—knew each of them as intimately as she knew Paya. Better, in truth. Their shared history filled that place, filled _her_ , until she thought that she or the forest would break under its weight. They were looking at her, all of them, and they did not judge or fear or seethe; some carried sorrows, or regrets, or pain, but all of them looked at her and they hoped. They _believed_.

One young man stepped from the crowd; he wore the green of fields, and there was salt in his hair, and he carried himself with the ease of someone who anticipated sleeping in the shade. He walked up to her with slow, respectful steps, but he never took his wide, expressive eyes from hers.

"We sailed together," Zelda said, and it was true; she could feel the rocking of wood under her feet, the waves lapping against the hull of a ship, the sea's wind in her hair as the sun deepened the rich tan of her skin. "On your ship and mine we sailed together; we left Ganon at the bottom of the sea and found new lands. New worlds. New lives."

He smiled up at her, and his smile was brighter than the sun. She did not always fight when the Calamity returned, but she had fought with this hero, on the cusp of an old world swept away by the sea. He stepped back, too guileless to be awkward, and another stepped forward.

The second's eyes were sharp, measuring, wary, but when he looked at her he was respectful, not quite in awe. His hair was swept back beneath his cap, the blue of his earrings matching the blue of his eyes. Nervous to stand before her again, he licked at his teeth, and she half-expected his mouth to be full of fangs—but they were a man's teeth, not a wolf's.

"You walked between worlds for me," she said, "aiding those who our people wronged, in those days long lost to the twilight. Two princesses you carried on your back; two worlds you set right, uniting light and shadow in a single purpose." The sky above her was orange and black, and the world radiated a calm that spoke of the gap between life and death. She was not afraid; how could she be? "We faced Ganon together, we three, and so terrible was he that we thought the life of the twilight had gone out; but with a curse on his lips Ganon died, and we three walked in the light together, however briefly."

The hero of the twilight nodded, and as he had done in those bygone days he averted his eyes and retreated, not out of distaste or out of fear but because the weight of other people's eyes was too much for him to bear for long.

Through this, Paya stood at Zelda's side, and Zelda could feel her companion's regard for her, for the vastness of her experience and for the things they shared through the connection they had formed. Recalling these heroes and the trials they had all undergone together was building up something inside of Zelda, a perspective that was being repaired like a wall, brick by brick. It wasn't her _knowledge_ , exactly; it was something beneath that, something more fundamental, and even with the goddess's awareness she could not be sure exactly what. Perhaps near the end of her journey she would know more. Paya hoped the same for her, and that realization was something Zelda would be thinking on for days.

A third hero stepped forward, and Zelda's heart caught in her chest; the goddess quivered inside of her. She did not have to see him, or to reach out with Hylia's senses; she would have known him blinded, in the vastness of a great void, through the veil of death.

"We flew through the sky together," she whispered, and the forest was so still that her voice replaced the rustling of leaves. "In…in Skyloft. We flew together, when we were children, with our lives before us and the world beneath us." She felt in that moment as she had felt back then, seeing him in his student's uniform astride his crimson loftwing, the wind blowing his hair back, his eyes always on her as they'd been even in the days when they were children and didn't know the words to speak the things that filled the air between them. For that instant she _was_ Hylia incarnate, the young woman who had loved him so fiercely in the days before the world had made itself known to them. "You strode the land for me. You forged the sword that seals the darkness, and the hero's soul that could wield it. You struck down the primordial darkness. You…"

He stood before her, and he looked at her now as he had looked at her then. She had betrayed him, though she had not known it at the time that love had blossomed inside of her. And when he had learned of her betrayal, he had not cared at all. His trust was deeper than a god's machinations; his faith was more resilient than the conspiracies of the divine. He had been so happy to see her, then. He was so happy to see her, now.

She held her hand out to him. He kneeled before her, taking her fingers in his.

"You were the first."

* * *

Even in the calm of the Lost Woods, the mists pressing in from every direction like a promise of isolation (though it had seemed more sinister before, to be sure), Paya walked a few paces behind Zelda, eyes scanning in every direction to ensure that there were no threats to her charge. The trees smiled their ridiculous, toothy smiles, and the wood was quiet, but still Paya watched.

She was still trying to process the fullness of what she had experienced, by Zelda's blessing, in the sacred grove where the Deku Tree stood. Zelda's personhood was something like divinity incarnate, a collection of powers and perspectives that defied the limitations and ignorance of a mortal body, or a mortal being. Still, Zelda _was_ mortal; she had made that clear to Paya, in word and in deed, many times. As a mortal, then, she had a mortal's understanding of experience. To Zelda, however frightening the idea of becoming the goddess was, however much she feared being changed, some part of her also thought of that experience as routine. She had done it so many times, now, that it was natural. Paya did not have that advantage and was still trying to unpack the vastness of that experience, and how drained and small she felt in the aftermath.

Her mind could not contain the fullness of the goddess's knowledge; in the moments that she and Zelda had been connected, she had been privy to memory and awareness of the heroes of the past, knew them as intimately and totally as the blood of Hylia did. Every name, every adventure, every battle, every moment of devotion to the cause and to Hyrule had flooded her and infused her, so that she knew the heroes better than they had known themselves. Once the connection was broken, once Zelda let go of the power and reality collapsed back into the mostly-physical, that knowledge had started to slip away from her like dreams, the recollection of which became foggier with every passing moment. Walking through the mists of the Lost Woods, she wondered if that was how the Lost Woods were: a border between knowledge and forgetfulness, not where one might lose one's way but where one might forget the direction one was going, allowing forgetfulness to guide one away.

There was a sound behind her; not behind them, but behind _her_ , close enough that she knew instantly that whatever had made the noise was following her specifically.

A day ago, she would have turned, sword out and shield at the ready; meeting the great Deku Tree, seeing what Zelda had shown her… she could not see the world as she had before.

 _Nothing walks in the Lost Woods except what the woods allow_ , she thought.

Paya did not call out to Zelda; she turned, and looked, and saw.

Knowledge and memory slipped away from her with every passing moment, so she did not _know_ the figure that loped out of the mist, the shadows hanging off of his shoulders like a cloak of hopes and sorrows. She did not _know_ the golden wolf who stared at her with one shining eye, but she knew _of_ him. She cast a look over her shoulder. Zelda had not noticed that she'd fallen behind yet. Paya turned her attention back to the wolf, who was drawing closer still.

She whispered, low enough that the other woman wouldn't hear.

"You fought in the future and the past for her. She watched over you while you healed the soul of another world. You returned to Hyrule for her. You fought Ganon _twice_ for her. You." She paused to swallow. "You died for her."

The golden wolf carried something in his jaw; as he drew closer, that something resolved into a leather pouch, which the wolf set upon the ground before stepping back and away.

She stepped forward, not afraid but feeling the weight of his presence and accomplishments. She didn't need to be told that he wanted her to have whatever he had set down, but her hand still shook when she took it, standing up. She did not open it; she could have, knew that the ancient hero would not begrudge her curiosity, (he had been curious once—hadn't he? Or was that just something she imagined, rather than something she remembered?) but she was stayed by the weight of the wood, of the moment.

"That is hers," the wolf said to her. His jaw did not move, and his voice was that of a man unused to speaking. "When the time comes, use it. You, messenger of the royal family, know how."

"Paya?" Zelda's voice came from across the mist; she had finally noticed that she was alone, was afraid that Paya had been separated from her.

"I'm right here!" Paya called over her shoulder. She did not know why, but she understood that this was a secret, and that in service of the royal family some secrets must be kept even from those most high. "Don't worry, I can see you! I'll be with you in just a moment."

"All right! I'll wait for you here, then. Who knows how long it would take us to find each other if we were separated, whether the Deku Tree intends it or not." Distractedly, Paya wondered if Zelda would want to hold her hand again. They did not have a torch, now.

Paya nodded to the wolf, who did not move. She rose, turned away, and walked to follow Zelda. The pouch was strangely heavy in her hand; the weight seemed more than physical, as if she was carrying history itself. What could the hero have given to her? By the time she took her tenth step, her curiosity overwhelmed her propriety, and she opened the drawstrings to peer inside.

She stopped. Looked over her shoulder.

In place of the wolf was a man, imposing in the weathered armor of a leader beloved by his followers, staring back at her with his one sorrowful eye. He, who had carried the weight of three worlds on his shoulders, had invested all of this in a shy girl from Kakariko Village.

"Paya!"

"Coming!"

Paya drew shut the drawstrings, set the pouch against her belt, and ran through the mist to catch up with her princess. The path that they were running down now was long, longer than she could have ever believed, and the end was far ahead of them; but further than that by far was the beginning, across a distance trod by generations back to the dawn of time.

 _Bluer than the sky_ , Paya thought. _Was it bluer than his eye? Yes. Yes, I think so_.

She reached down, felt the fabric of the pouch at her waist, assuring herself that the ocarina was still there.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE_** : All right! That took a bit, but it's out there now. We've already had some major divergences from the way that the world of the game works, just as a consequence of how Zelda moves through the world, but I think this one is probably the biggest yet. I hope you're looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Onward, to the desert.


	30. Kara Kara Bazaar

Even in the early morning the sun was different above the Gerudo desert, and Zelda felt that difference almost immediately. As its burning eye peaked over the horizon in golden splendor, the sand began to swelter, light bending from the waves of heat. For all the world it was as if the sand had been hiding that warmth inside of itself, waiting for the morning's signal to release it back into the world. She liked that thought—had she heard it before, somewhere? Maybe she would remember, one day.

The footing on the road that snaked between the dunes was not so sure as the path they had taken through the canyon on the edge of the desert, but it was solid enough that their way wasn't impeded. Zelda had stepped experimentally out onto the dunes and found that the ground itself had fought against her progress. It recalled the effort she'd had to exert when walking through snow on Lanayru Mountain and Hylia Mountain, though the motion of walking through snow was dissimilar to that of walking atop sand. She had walked up and down a dune, getting a feel for it, and Paya's expression had become unreadable even after they returned to the road. Zelda was aware that the other woman kept stealing glances at her, even now, but she was not going to push Paya to talk; that conversation would happen whenever her friend was ready.

A broad-shouldered Gerudo woman was coming down the road ahead of them at a run, her long strides letting her cover the distance much more quickly than Zelda could have (though she didn't think the taller woman could outrun Paya even at a sprint). Paya fell in behind Zelda to give the other traveler room to pass.

"Sav'otta," the runner said, raising her hand in greeting as she passed them.

"Sav'otta," Zelda replied, while Paya mumbled; Zelda had taught her a few words of greeting but she wasn't confident enough to actually say them.

The runner didn't stop, but she did slow her pace and look back at them over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in surprise—then she nodded in appreciation and continued her run toward the canyon. Zelda and Paya watched her eating up the distance before turning back to the path.

"The Gerudo desert is such a _nice_ place, isn't it?" Zelda could not help grinning; she was filled with a sense of warmth, looking at the road that wound between rolling dunes, twisting out of sight but leading inevitably to their destination.

"I-I suppose so," Paya said. She apparently had not gotten over her nervousness from trying to speak a greeting in an unfamiliar language. "Though s-surely you mean the _people_? Not the place? E-especially the weather?"

"Hm?" Zelda looked up. "It's such a clear morning. There isn't a single cloud!"

Paya paused for a moment. "I'm sorry, I wasn't being precise. The clear skies are part of the problem. I meant to refer to the heat."

"The heat? But it—" and there, for the first time that morning, Zelda really thought about it. "I suppose it _is_ warm. Still, it hadn't occurred to me until just now. Why _am_ I so comfortable, I wonder?" She adjusted her hood, and her tunic; she had worn her Hylian tunic to keep the sun off of her skin, just as Paya was wearing her weather-proofed hat to the same purpose; unlike Paya's outfit, however, Zelda's was not designed to keep her cool in the desert heat. Objectively, she _should_ have been sweltering. Instead, she was merely warm. "Do you suppose that I spent much time here in the past?"

Paya thought, then nodded. "The queen, as monarch, was also the chief dignitary for the kingdom. She traveled to visit all the people of Hyrule. I'm told that you accompanied her on several expeditions, and that she spent a great deal of time among the Gerudo in particular."

"In that case I likely grew accustomed to the climate in my youth; in fact, I'd bet that I would have been _more_ comfortable here a century ago. Still. More time among the Gerudo? I wonder why that would be the case. Were there particular tensions between our nations?"

Paya blinked rapidly; she hadn't been expecting so many questions on pre-Calamity political history, apparently.

"I-I don't know. I don't _think_ so. The Gerudo have been staunch allies to the queens of Hyrule for thousands of years. I couldn't say for sure, but I recall hearing that your mother was particularly popular. Grandmother would know. W-would you prefer to ask her?"

"No. No, never mind, but thank you. I'm sorry. I'm preoccupied, I suppose. I feel comfortable here, even more comfortable than when I was on the plateau and it was mostly emptied of monsters. I want to know where that comfort came from; I think it had something to do with Lady Urbosa, but I can't be sure. My memory is so spotty in this regard."

Paya tilted back her hat with her thumb, though not so far that the light of the sun fell on her face. "One of your memory spots is up ahead, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it is." She didn't like that name, 'memory spots,' as if her memories had soaked into the ground and were waiting for her to come back and stand in them like mud. Part of her distaste, she knew, was that the name—and the comparison it brought to mind for her—was perfectly apt. She had to leverage particular care to not show her distaste where Paya might perceive it. "The photograph was taken in an open area with trees, rather than in a town."

"That is probably the Kara Kara Bazaar, which is seated on the shores of an oasis at the halfway point on the path to Gerudo Town. I don't know how far it is, exactly, but it shouldn't be too difficult to reach before the sun is high."

Zelda nodded and Paya lowered the brim of her hat again. The sands stretched out before them, and as they walked Zelda pored over the question of her memory. What would she see next? What would she learn? What made her love this place so, on a level that was so deep that she could recall it in the comfort of her body? Hopefully she would know soon.

* * *

Zelda sat in the shade of a palm tree, the wind blowing cool and sweet off of the oasis. Her hands were folded on her lap. She had dusted the sand off of her trousers, then rinsed her hands in the water. She probably shouldn't have done that last,but she wasn't thinking very clearly and no one present would gainsay her. She found herself staring at Link—unable to take her eyes off of him, really. He stood nearby, the Master Sword in his hands, taking in their surroundings with a posture that suggested something very similar to a cat in repose; he would react instantly to anything he considered a threat, but for now he seemed almost relaxed, even though he was standing guard. Looking at him, one would never guess how he could react when provoked.

One would never guess that he had left three bodies lying on the sand only minutes ago.

Link never presumed to make physical contact with her—even hours ago she would have thought he never _deigned_ to do so, but that was vanity. However, after moving between the Yiga, felling them with strokes so swift she would have thought they were play-acting if not for the blood soaking into the sand, he had knelt in front of her. _Spoken_ to her, of his own volition. Asked if she was injured, if she could walk, if she needed help getting up. She'd said she could stand on her own, found her legs betraying her. He'd taken her by the hand, helped her up, and led her to the tree. He'd whistled so sharply and so loudly that a guard had come to investigate, and he'd told her about the bodies on the road. The guard found them, raised a general alarm, and sent word to Gerudo Town that the Yiga had tried to kill the Princess of Hyrule. The Lady Urbosa would surely come to investigate, she'd said, and then she returned to her post.

So, here they were.

Zelda was fairly sure that she was in shock, protected from some emotional and physical enormity by her body's natural defenses and buffers. She'd read about this in medical texts. Whatever she _would_ have been feeling now would come, but later. Hopefully she would not make a scene, would be able to keep from embarrassing herself in front of anyone.

 _I wonder_ , she thought, _if it's because they tried to kill me, or because Link killed them_.

It was interesting that her reaction to this attack was so different compared to when she and Urbosa had been attacked some weeks ago. Well, it had _been_ a different incident, hadn't it? That time with Urbosa, she'd never really felt the danger of the moment. Urbosa had fought so swiftly, dominated her opponents so totally, that there was no real sense of menace toward Zelda's person. More, Urbosa had not killed the men from that night. As dramatic and sweeping as Urbosa's defeat of their attackers had been, it was ultimately _much_ closer to play-acting than the instant, lethal violence that Link had visited upon them just now.

Yes. Quite different. Today she'd been alone when the Yiga found her. She'd been alone when steel was raised over her head, catching the light of the sun with a promise of her blood hanging in the air. She'd been alone when—

"Princess." Link's voice gently cut through her ruminations, pushing the dark thoughts out of her head as she looked at him. His eyes could have stopped fighters in their tracks—had done so, many times. His expression was still unreadable, but she found that she no longer wished to ascribe any particular motive to that. "If you need to talk… we can talk. It helps, sometimes."

"Thank you," she said. "Not just yet." Should she also thank him for saving her life? It was his duty. He was doing as had been commanded of him by the kingdom. Would it insult him to turn it into a personal matter? None of that changed how she felt in that moment, or rather how much she knew she _would_ be grateful, when such feelings floated again at the surface. She should thank him. But he turned his head away, and the moment was gone, and the wind blew quietly across the sands, carrying the smell of water, rather than blood. She stared at his back.

Before very much longer, the barking of sand seals filled the air. Shouting followed it. Zelda wasn't in the mood for more shouting, so she closed her eyes, trying to shut it out. That didn't really work, but it faded anyway, was replaced by heavy footfalls crossing the sand. A pause, more steps, the rustle of cloth, and the smell of a very familiar perfume. Zelda hadn't noticed it when resting on Vah Naboris the night before, but she did now.

"Zelda. Little bird." Urbosa's voice was nearly choked with concern; this was a jolt through the insulation Zelda rested under. The princess opened her eyes. Urbosa was kneeling in front of her, so low that their eyes were level. The chief of the Gerudo rested one hand against Zelda's cheek. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. Yes, I think I am. Physically." She reached up with her own hand, stroked the back of Urbosa's, felt a rush of familiar warmth spreading through her chest and spine, unbinding the knots of tension throughout her body. "I feel… numb, emotionally. As if nothing that happened was quite real."

"That will pass."

"Yes. I've read about this before, you know. Reading it doesn't really prepare you for it, I suppose, but at least I have some idea what to expect." She paused. "I hope I'm still calm when this feeling passes. I will try to be. I am sorry to have worried you." She cut her eyes toward Link, knew that Urbosa saw her do so. "I'm sorry that I was being childish and let this happen."

"Enough. No more apologizing." Urbosa's tone was firmer, now, though it still couldn't be called sharp. She shifted her kneeling to a slightly straighter posture, and Zelda had to raise her eyes to keep looking at her. "Evil hearts are arrayed against you; that you are alive is more than enough recompense for me." She withdrew her hand, returning Zelda's own to the princess's lap. "You need rest. You have to continue your pilgrimage, but before you go on that journey I would have you sleep in Gerudo Town again. I can make sure you are sufficiently guarded."

It couldn't be said that Link flinched, exactly. He never flinched at anything. Not one muscle tensed. Instead it was as if there was a potential for his head to turn, and then it didn't. Zelda didn't know how to explain that she knew he was reacting; she just did.

"Thank you for your offer. However, I fear I must decline." She sat straighter, unable to raise her head to Urbosa's level but making a try of it anyway. If nothing else, she could be composed. "This incident happened because I shirked my duty to accept the guard that has been assigned to me. I have used your hospitality as an escape once already. To do so again would be an insult to my protector, especially after he has proven himself so capable."

Urbosa blinked, then looked over her shoulder at the hero. "I suppose he did, at that. As much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, you'll be safer with that boy than you would with an army of warriors. Even Gerudo." The numbness must have mostly fallen away, because Zelda's throat tightened at the way Urbosa looked at her. She wanted to embrace the Gerudo chief, to ensure herself of Urbosa's physical reality and to ensure Urbosa that all was well between them. She didn't have to, she knew, which allowed her to restrain herself. "I can see that you would like to stay, but your duty calls. Will you be leaving today, then?"

"Yes. Immediately, I think." She was being very composed, she thought. "Thank you for your generosity, and your hospitality, and… and for caring so much. I hope that when this is over, I—"

"Never mind when this is over. When the world is heavy, and the castle presses in on you from all sides, whether the shadow of the Calamity is still looming or not, you come home. Nothing would make me happier than to see your smiling face again, little bird."

Zelda nodded. Urbosa rose, and Zelda followed suit. Link stood still, his eyes fixed on the dunes past which the guards were examining the bodies of the assassins.

That called to mind a question. She didn't know if it was right to ask, but she'd been wondering since some minutes before Urbosa arrived.

"Lady Urbosa." The formality made the Gerudo chief tilt her head slightly, setting the crimson sea of her hair to waving. "I do not know how to ask this tactfully. Do you think there is any possibility that the men who attacked us some time ago are the same ones as…?" She gestured with her hand, toward the sounds of investigation.

"None at all." The sudden darkness of Urbosa's tone was not directed at Zelda; that was the only reason the princess could compartmentalize it as well as she did. "I will examine the corpses myself momentarily, but I already know they are different individuals." Urbosa looked back toward Gerudo Town. Zelda could feel Urbosa's attention focused on the spot where she had done battle before. "I let them live to spare you the trauma of watching them die, and they left under their own power, but those men will also never fight again. The wounds they took run much deeper than they know." She held up her hand, as if to snap her fingers. "Whoever threatens you will meet the storm. Whoever threatens you will bear the weight of her fury."

Urbosa walked away, then, rounding the dune, leaving Link and Zelda alone on the oasis's shore. Both watched her as she left.

"Link," and at the sound of her voice he turned, as he had turned at nothing in her conversation with Urbosa. It made her pause before continuing. "I would like to speak to you. When we are away, I mean. I feel I have a lot to apologize for, and… more, besides. Would you be willing to talk to me?"

He nodded. Sheathed the Master Sword. Went to gather their things.

* * *

The sun was high over the Kara Kara Bazaar by the time Zelda and Paya arrived; aside from the trouble of actually walking through the desert, they ended up distracted by a nest of lizalfos and thunder chus just off the road. Robbie's weapons made short work of them, but it took some time to comb through their possessions and catalogue the remains in the wake of battle. They agreed to have lunch in the bazaar's inn before making their way to Gerudo Town.

Later, Zelda would not be able to say exactly what it was that lead her to seek higher ground; on some level it was probably the simple fact of wanting to be able to see a long way in the desert. How far did the hills go? In air so dry, how distant was the horizon? The bazaar's primary building, housing the inn, was dozens of meters tall, and would provide an excellent view. She took a walk around it, spied a ladder, and began her climb. Partway up, realizing she was not even breathing hard, she thought back to how difficult it had been to climb out of the Chamber of Resurrection. How had she made it out of there at all? If she went back there now—and she could, it would take only moments—how difficult would she find the climb? Were there any barrels left at all? Would she be able to get out on her own, or would she need to teleport away?

She pulled herself up onto the roof, dusted off the legs of her trousers, and looked up.

"Oh, pardon me," she said to the back of the woman looking out over the desert, "I didn't realize anyone was up here!"

The woman—taller than Zelda, hair long and red almost like a Gerudo's—looked over her shoulder. She was very plainly Hylian, wearing the style of sirwal, top, and veil that marked women who walked the tourist's path through the desert (later she would need to unpack why she remembered _that_ of all things), but she was so comfortable-looking in her stance and her attire that Zelda imagined some more-sheltered people throughout Hyrule might mistake her for one of the region's natives.

"Oh, don't worry," the woman replied, turning to face Zelda, really looking at her, "there's plenty of room up here for both of us. I was just watching the comings and goings at Gerudo Town. My name is Vilia."

Zelda inclined her head. "You are very gracious, Vilia. My name is Zelda."

Vilia's eyebrows leaped up; over the veil, this was nearly the only form of expression Zelda could read on her face. "Zelda? That's a pretty name. Powerful, too. Your parents must have had great hopes for you, to name you so auspiciously."

"Yes, I suppose they must have. You said you were watching the entrances to Gerudo Town?"

If Vilia noticed Zelda's haphazard attempt to change the subject, she gave no sign. Instead she waved Zelda over with a hand, and the princess stepped in to stand next to her as she turned back to the town. With one pointed nail Vilia pointed toward Gerudo Town.

"Not _just_ the entrances, but you can watch a little drama now if you look carefully. Do you see the figure running along the wall, toward the left side of the entrance closest to us?"

Zelda could not see very clearly; Vilia apparently had eyes like a hawk. Zelda took the Sheikah Slate from her belt, flipped over to the viewing mode, and zoomed in on the figure in question. Even from this distance she could make it out quite clearly: a man, wearing glasses and a heavy pack, running along the perimeter of the city.

"That man is making good time."

"He should be. That's Bozai, and I think he's an… archaeologist? Anthropologist? Some such thing. You can't see them from here," as she had apparently not noticed the slate, "but he's wearing a special pair of boots that let him run over sand as easily as more solid ground. He's spent the past week or two just running laps around Gerudo Town's walls, over and over."

Zelda looked up from the slate, blinked, looked over at Vilia, looked back at Bozai on the slate. "Why would he do _that_ , of all things?"

"How familiar are you with Gerudo Town?"

Zelda did not know why she wanted so badly to protect her secret in this context, but for some reason she did; it could have been embarrassment, or an overabundance of caution, or any number of things, but she did not feel like having a conversation about her amnesia, or her removal from her prior life, or the small things she did remember. So:

"I traveled here with my mother when I was much, much younger. I'm afraid I don't remember my time in the desert very well, but I still feel a connection with this place."

"Then I think you might already understand well enough. Though if you were that young," she said in the tone of a woman reflecting on how young Zelda still was, "then you might not remember some of the ways Gerudo Town relates to the world. Men haven't been able to enter Gerudo Town for a long, long time—no one alive knows exactly how old the law is, or what caused it, but it's never been deviated from, officially, whether the men in question are Gerudo or not. This isn't really a problem, most of the time; Gerudo men are exceedingly rare, and any foreign man with sense who comes to this region to trade makes sure to travel with a woman so that at least one member of his party can move freely in the city."

"With sense, you said?"

Vilia scoffed. "You may have seen those slobbering oafs in their little tents on the edge of the oasis? They've been here for days; the leader of that party didn't think anything of the fact that his entire expedition consists of men, and now he's stuck unless he can find a woman he can trust to bargain on his behalf. And that foolishness is the most _benign_ example you can find; the other men with him are much more typical."

"Typical?" It didn't take much prompting to keep Vilia talking. Bozai just kept running, while Zelda watched. From this distance it was easy to assume he really had nothing better to do.

"Zelda." Vilia's voice was so serious now that Zelda was forced to look up and at the older woman, who was staring down out of the corner of her eye. "Watch the men around Gerudo Town. Some of them, maybe even most, come here chasing riches, or knowledge. Too many, though, are here because they imagine the desert to be full of lusty maids who are longing for the embrace or influence of a man. They all invariably learn to the contrary, but before they learn…" Vilia shook her head. "Every day Bozai runs around the town, huffing and puffing, hoping that a guard, or a passerby, or _anyone_ will take notice of how easily he moves over the sand. Like he's some kind of bird, performing a mating display. Near the height of the day he'll work up his courage, and approach one of the guards…"

On the viewscreen of the slate, Bozai was moving as if Vilia's narration directed him; Zelda watched him approach the guard, panting so heavily it moved his entire frame, then stand with his hands on his hips and puff out his chest. He didn't look directly at the towering, imposing woman with her even taller polearm; he was either too nervous or pretending to speak casually.

"And every day he'll try to bargain with them, for passage or for company or for... whatever."

After several seconds (and what looked like a long pause of awkward silence) Bozai spoke again, and then the guard looked directly at him. She was wearing a mask over her mouth, so Zelda could not see what she said, but it must have been cutting because Bozai flinched as if struck. The guard's partner shifted her stance, not enough to be aggressive but enough so that she was now facing Bozai, too.

Bozai promptly turned and ran away, running directly toward a makeshift shelter just off the road.

"And every day it ends the same way. It will continue like that until he gets the idea and finally leaves." Vilia sniffed, then sighed. "And he's the least bad of all of them, the little creep."

Zelda put the slate away, taking in the wider view of Gerudo Town—not the only Gerudo city, Paya had told her, but definitely the most important for trading with the other peoples of Hyrule.

"I suppose I wouldn't recall those things from my youth," she said. "I spent nearly all of my time in the city itself. My mother was apparently friends with many of the people living there."

Up to this point, Vilia had filled every gap of silence with more conversation, so it took Zelda several seconds to realize the other woman had remained silent, thoughtful, for that entire time. She did not turn her head, she did not look; she focused on the city, on the whole of it, how it stood in the desert and, even from this distance, one could see gleaming streams of water running through aqueducts that had been laid between streets and buildings. Looking at it made her feel homesick. _What a silly thing_ , she reflected, _to feel homesick for a place I don't remember. And not the castle, either, but a town far from the heart of the kingdom._

A chunk of memory broke loose, but rather than information and perspective it brought an emotion: she wasn't just homesick. She missed her mother, who she remembered not at all, and she missed Urbosa, who she remembered nearly as little.

"What brings you to Gerudo Town, Zelda? You don't seem like you're here to trade, or for tourism."

"Reconnecting with the past, I suppose." The lie-by-omission rolled off of her tongue more easily than the naked truth could have. "I knew someone here, once, and she was very dear to me. She made this _place_ very dear to me. I want to… find her, again. And I want to see this city. Her home."

"There's something about Gerudo Town," Vilia said, and now _she_ sounded wistful. "I envy the past you have here, you know? For all that it seems to make the men around it more stupid than usual, the streets, the buildings, the food, the art, the people… it feels like all of it's there to support you, in a way." She waved one hand, as if to dismiss an admonishment that she anticipated. "It's not, of course. The Gerudo have a history here that goes back to before recorded history, and this place exists for them, not for Hylians. Still. It feels like this is built to help women in general. To help you see yourself more clearly."

Something in Zelda made her turn, and look away from Gerudo Town, out into the massive sandstorm where lightning danced, and the great shadow of a beast seemed to fade in and out of existence. For some reason, Zelda realized at this moment that she had been thinking of Ganon as masculine. Why was that? She would come back to it. She turned back to Gerudo Town, and something itched at her thoughts, some revelation that was just out of her reach.

"Thank you for talking to me, Vilia. It has been a very pleasant conversation. I'm going back down, now, so my companion and I can make our way to the city."

"Thank _you_ , Zelda. It does get lonely up here. I think that—" Vilia put her hands on her hips, tilted her head to the side in thought, then looked Zelda up and down. "Actually, it just occurred to me. I sell clothes, as a matter of fact, and the outfit you're wearing now looks _awfully_ warm for this climate. Would you be interested in some of my wares?"

Her first instinct was to nod, but she held this in check once she took in Vilia's outfit, which was well-cut and made of nice material but still had an _air_ about it. "Are the outfits like the one you're wearing now?"

"Oh, I know it's touristy! It's not something you'd want to wear when you're coming home and reconnecting with your past and trying to find someone you care about!"

"It's not that they're something a tourist would wear!" It was absolutely that they were something a tourist would wear.

Vilia either did not hear the lie or did not care. "But, listen! I want you to consider: the outfits I sell would look _so cute_ on you. Just imagining it makes me want to _scream_. 600 rupees for one set is competitive with prices in town, and I dye these by hand!"

 _Oh, thank Hylia, she mentioned the price_. Zelda tapped her chin thoughtfully, then shook her head. "It's very tempting—they really are lovely. I'm afraid that the budget for our trip has been measured very carefully, though, and we just don't have much surplus. I'd be dipping into our emergency funds." This last, at least, was true, since she considered all the gemstones they carried to be emergency funds.

Vilia sighed dramatically, then turned away, clearly unhurt but just as clearly intending to make a show of it. "Oh, _fine_. Economic realities are what they are, and I suppose it wouldn't do to let those goons in the oasis or outside the city walls see you in something that cute." She looked back over her shoulder at Zelda, and from the crinkling around her eyes Zelda could see she was smiling. "Still. If, on your way back, you find yourself with a little cash to spare, come find Vilia. I'll be here for a little while longer, and I'd _love_ to see you in these clothes. Or your companion, if you like."

Zelda nodded her assent, turned, and started for the ladder. She had climbed down two rungs when the last thing Vilia said struck her, and she imagined how Paya would look in an outfit like that.

 _That_ would _be cute,_ she acknowledged. _And Paya would definitely keel over dead if she heard anyone even mention the possibility of_ asking _her to wear it._

The sun was warm as she descended.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE:_** Lemme tell you, I've been looking forward to Zelda's trip through the desert for a bit.

Who's ready for Gerudo Town? For what comes after?


	31. Gerudo Town

Gerudo Town's front gate opened up directly into the plaza around which the market was situated. Outside of that gate, the city gave off a low _hum_ , though one could not have said what that was—but once the gate was crossed, that hum rose into the dull roar of voices. Zelda had expected that stall owners would be calling out, hawking their wares, and certainly some were, but by and large each woman selling in the square was seated behind a spread of goods, relaxed, allowing the fruits of her labor or her land to speak for themselves. Most of the voices were from the crowds—Gerudo, yes, but also Rito and Hylian women, chatting in singles or in loose groups that shifted and moved like eddies of water. Many stands were set up for the selling of food, be it rich-looking meat or fruit meant to fight the heat of the day, but others caught her eye more insistently.

"Paya," she said, tugging on her friend's sleeve as if she needed to get her attention, "let's head over to that one in the corner. I think they're selling arrows!"

Paya's eyes were wide and she looked as if she might bolt. Zelda understood, instantly: the Sheikah girl had never been around this many people in her entire life, certainly not packed so closely together. This was worlds removed from the quiet of Kakariko Village, and an order of magnitude fuller than Zora's Domain or Goron City had been; it was nearly a wall of voices and faces, squashing flat those who did not know how to move through it. Paya's relationship with the bodies of other people had been tenuous or tumultuous for a long time, Zelda had gathered, and this place would put her to the test. Still.

"Listen." She gripped Paya's hand directly. "It will be all right. _You_ will be all right. We need to restock on our arrows, but that's all we're going to do. We'll leave a wide berth around the crowds, make our way over to that stall, get our supplies, and then we'll go somewhere quiet to recover. I think there's an inn nearby. Would that be OK?"

Paya might have blushed, but it was hard to tell under the shade of her hat. "Y-y-you don't need to do that, Zelda. I'll be all right. It's just a little noise. From a lot of people."

"Well, I'm glad you would be able to take it, but _I_ wouldn't. So." The truth was, Zelda couldn't bear to make Paya pit discomfort against the duty to keep an eye on her at all times. Making the girl even think about that choice would have been cruel in the extreme. "It will only be a moment, anyway. Let's go."

As through the Lost Woods, Zelda led Paya by the hand. True to her word, she took them in a wide arc around the noisiest and most energetic parts of the crowd, cutting through the center of the plaza wherever they could. That center held fewer tourists than the edges of the plaza; those few people moving through were primarily Gerudo, some wearing enormous packs on their backs in preparation for some long journey. A few smiled and greeted them, in Hylian or Gerudo, and a few more paid no mind at all.

Zelda was not used to handling crowds any more familiarly than Paya was; the difference was that she had the force of will and sense of self-importance (and that's what it was, she could admit it to herself) to stop, look at the backs of the women there gathered, observe how they moved, and then copy it. She made a bee-line for the fletcher's stall, slipping between shoulders and sides where she could, gently forcing people apart to make room for Paya where she had to. She muttered thanks or apologies, where appropriate, and her grip on Paya's hand was unshakable. She couldn't look back to make sure Paya was OK; they had to reach the stall, first.

All at once they broke through, and the proprietor looked up at them with an expectant but pleased expression. Zelda took the opportunity to look back at Paya—who was plainly frazzled but nodded that she was OK—before releasing her hand and turning her attention back to business.

"Sav'aaq," Zelda said, and the owner's eyes lit up with amusement that shifted into genuine surprise when the Hylian girl continued in technically proficient, if stilted, Gerudo. "We would like to purchase multiple arrows, please."

"I'm sure you would," the owner replied in Gerudo, nodding. "Your wording isn't exactly natural, but your accent is very good. Where did you learn, little sister?"

"Here," Zelda said, sweeping her hand toward the plaza. "When I was small. I have forgotten much."

"You remember enough, I think. I see by your friend's expression she doesn't have the same background. You should take care of her! She looks so nervous." The woman leaned forward—she was so tall, her arms so long, that she easily reached across the display of her arrows and patted Paya gently on the arm, as if she were soothing a child. Then, in Hylian: "Do not worry, _vehvi_ , no one here is going to bite you. Gerudo Town is very good for tourists. Very safe."

"Oh! Thank you! I'm sorry! I mean—" Paya bowed, deep, apparently collecting herself. "I'm just not very good with crowds. Please ignore my rudeness, and do not think you need to speak Hylian on my account. My companion so rarely has an opportunity to practice speaking Gerudo with anyone, and it makes me very happy to listen to her do so, even if I don't understand the words."

The owner looked at Paya, then nodded. "As you say, little sister." Then she turned back to Zelda and she scowled before continuing in Gerudo. "I hope you appreciate how good a friend you have."

"I do appreciate her. I promise."

"Well, you'd better. Anyway! Time for business. You say you were looking for arrows? I have the best in the entire region! See, here, look at these thunder arrows. Thunder magic itself is as much of the desert as it is of clouds, so we—"

It went on that way for a little while as they worked out the best elements of each of the arrow types and their specific uses. The owner surprised Zelda, not in her knowledge of the craft of magical fletching—which was comprehensive—but in how strong her opinions were about the relative usefulness of each kind of arrow, and how they worked together. One couldn't travel in the Gerudo Highlands without plenty of Fire Arrows, for instance, and walking through the desert without ice arrows _and_ thunder arrows was asking for all kinds of trouble. They discussed the interconnection between the elements, how well each kind worked in different climates against different kinds of monsters (or wildlife, but they were not talking about hunting), and how many it was good to have of each kind.

The woman was pushing for Zelda to buy up a significant portion of her stock; based on the way she talked, she rarely had a customer as enthusiastic as she had right now, and she wanted to capitalize on that rare opportunity. She offered Zelda a five percent discount. Zelda talked her into taking off ten percent in exchange for buying every arrow. There was a lot of smiling and laughing and shaking of hands, then.

Zelda did not use her goddess awareness during this exchange, would not think to for a little while yet. Opening herself up in a place that crowded felt like asking for trouble, and she felt _safe_ in Gerudo Town, safe in a way that she had not felt since leaving the Great Plateau. She would have been able to recognize why, if she had chosen to pull back her perspective and really think about the way she was feeling; she would have been able to say that she was connecting with a part of herself that went deeper than memory, the very foundation of her sense of being that had been laid in her childhood. If she _had_ possessed her memory, she might have reflected that she felt close to her mother, walking through that town that her mother had loved. But she had none of these things: not her memory, not a moment for quiet introspection, and not an inkling that she should use the power of Hylia.

She was not aware of the eyes that were watching as she and Paya moved through the crowd.

* * *

"You're really enjoying yourself," Paya said from behind her, and something in her tone made Zelda wonder. She looked over her shoulder—Paya had insisted that she was all right, that she would be able to keep up in the crowds and didn't need to be led—and tried to read the Sheikah woman's face. Paya looked bright, even cheery, which must have been a considerable effort with the amount of noise and the number of bodies that they had just pressed through. "Aren't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I suppose I am. I know this must be exhausting. I'm sorry for my selfishness. Still… yes, I am."

Paya inclined her head. "Please do not apologize. Seeing you so animated, so _engaged_ … it makes me happy, too. I feel like I'm seeing a part of you I haven't seen before."

"I'm engaged often!"

"Yes, you are. With learning about the Guardians, or the past, or your duties, but…" Paya looked about. "That looks like a quiet spot."

They had pulled away from the larger crowds of the market as they made their way toward the inn recommended by the fletcher. The gap in feeling, separated only by meters, was pronounced: in one moment they had been surrounded by people on all sides, and in the next they had broken away so that the roar of voices slowly faded. There were more people ahead of them, near the inn, though not nearly so many as were outside the clothing shop across the plaza. It was only here, in this one space, where things were quiet.

Across from them, marking the spot where people did not gather because there was nothing to interest them, was a shop, and unless Zelda was reading incorrectly it was called Starlight Memories. She had no idea what they could be selling, based on the name. Standing outside of the doorway was a tall Gerudo who paced back and forth, hand cupped under her chin while she thought very hard about something. Zelda found herself taken aback by how _well_ the woman was dressed, from the ornamentation in her hair to the cufflinks on her wrists; whoever she was, she practically _glowed_.

"You would like to continue speaking… in a shop?" Zelda asked.

"It looks like no one's browsing the shop's wares at the moment," Paya said. "I know I said I'm all right with crowds, and I _am_ , but… it might be nice to spend a few minutes in the quiet, before we make the push to the inn."

"Of course. We will do just that, then. I must admit, I could use a bit of quiet myself."

They approached the store, and in spite of their closeness the woman standing outside of it did not acknowledge them, did not seem to even see them. She was deeply preoccupied, whatever she was thinking about, and if it had not been for Zelda's natural curiosity—call it nosiness if you must—combined with an unfailing politeness, then they would not have bothered her at all.

"Sav'aaq," Zelda said as they made to pass her.

"Sav'aaq," the woman replied, then blinked, then looked at them, then scowled in a way that did not wrinkle her forehead. Then she continued in Hylian, "Great! You got the last of my free time with that greeting."

"Oh," Zelda replied, in Gerudo. "I apologize."

"No, no, none of that," the woman continued, still scowling, still in Hylian. "I speak Gerudo all the time. Let me practice my Hylian with you; you will get plenty of opportunity to practice in this city."

"I, ah." Zelda inclined her head. "Of course. Please excuse my rudeness. I did not mean to trouble you."

The woman inhaled through her mouth and exhaled through her nose. "No, _I_ apologize. I have let my stress affect how I treat strangers. Please pay me no mind; my problems are mine."

"What's the matter?" Paya asked, volunteering a question to a stranger for the first time that day.

The woman nodded to her. "It is not something that should bother you, but you are gracious enough to ask, so I'll tell you. My name is Isha. I manage a shop that specializes in handmade accessories, but I've run out of flint. I need it to make my items."

"Flint?" That took Zelda back. It occurred to her, as the word left her mouth, that she knew very little about how things were made, generally speaking.

"Yes," Isha continued. "I work with topaz, rubies, sapphires—even diamonds, when I have them. But the act of cutting the gems, setting them in jewelry, measuring them, polishing them, all of these things require flint. I'm out of stock, and no one in the city seems to have any, either." She held one perfectly manicured hand over her eyes, as if to hide her face, and then continued in a lower voice. "It's starting to look like I'm going to have to go to the highlands with a hammer and mine for some myself."

Zelda and Paya exchanged glances, eyebrows raised, while Isha wasn't looking. Then Zelda said, "We've been traveling for some time, and I often stop to do a bit of mining at ore deposits. If it's flint you need, we've built up a considerable stockpile and would be happy to give you whatever amount you require."

Isha lowered her hand, stared at the two girls. "Truly?"

"Yes, of course!"

"We have been out of flint for days; the delay in product was going to start affecting business, soon. You are doing me a greater service than you know. All right. Will the two of you come inside, please? I'd like to discuss your payment." Before Zelda could say they required nothing, Isha had already turned and taken long, flowing, elegant steps into the shop, disappearing through the doorway.

And, beating Zelda to the bunch a second time in as many moments, Paya said, "We _were_ going to go in anyway. And it will still be much quieter than the plaza."

They followed Isha inside.

Out of the light of the sun it was instantly cooler, as if they had entered into another climate entirely. The light streaming in through the windows kept the shop well-lit, even more than the torches that hung along the walls, and the cases of jewelry sparkled in that light. Zelda did not know much about jewelry—she suspected that she never really had, and that she had made few decisions about her appearance herself—but she could still see how finely crafted each piece was. There was a sapphire-set tiara where the filigree reminded her of Zora architecture.

She handed over the flint to Isha, who took it to another woman in the back, Cara, before returning to them. Up close, in the confines of the shop, Zelda was taken aback all over again by Isha's appearance, from the careful ties of her hair to the diadem she wore to… everything. She exuded a kind of cultivated elegance, and not of someone who meant to communicate wealth or power, but that of someone who loved beauty for beauty's own sake. She may have been the most striking woman Zelda had ever seen.

"Since you have done so much to help my shop," Isha said, "I would like to make a piece of jewelry for you. You will need to provide the raw materials, but I will not charge you for the setting or for the labor, so you incur no cost out of pocket."

Zelda blinked up at Isha, stunned. "That is… _very_ generous."

Isha smiled, the turn of her lips a small and pretty change. "Do not think too well of me. You have done me a better service than you can know. Now, please—look at the pieces I have on display here. Save for the diamond circlet, if you have the materials to make them then I will make one fitted for you."

Zelda and Paya moved between the jewel cases together, stopping at each of them, talking in low voices about the potential benefits of the different gems. They did not step over to the diamond circlet, though Zelda did take in the price associated. It only made sense that Isha was excluding that one; 1500 rupees of labor was a _lot_ to just give away.

"The amber earrings are very nice," Paya said. "They're said to strengthen the body as effectively as heavy armor."

"I'm sure that's true," Zelda replied, "but I can't help thinking they might be made redundant by the armor Robbie made. The opal earrings are the same way; moving more quickly through water sounds very nice, but could they fill that function as well as the Zora armor?" She shook her head. "I think it's down to the circlets."

"I agree. Still, the question is: which one?"

"I believe we can eliminate the ruby for now. It might be useful when moving through a colder climate, but we have a lot of experience in that, and it's much cheaper and easier to cook for warmth than it is for coolness. The fletcher mentioned that the monsters roaming the desert tend to align with lightning, like the chus we found outside of town, and insulation against electricity could prove a boon."

In truth, she was looking to Paya for advice; in spite of the fact that she had seen somewhat more of the world than her companion, Zelda still felt less familiar with how to move through it than Paya did. Even if it were only through the preparation of education, Zelda thought of Paya as a kind of authority. The princess could make decisions when she needed to, but she trusted her attendant implicitly. It as a lucky thing that her companion was keyed in on this small dependence.

"I think," Paya said, "that the best way to deal with any foe who wields lightning is the same way we deal with foes who wield the other elements, or none: do not fight them directly, and do not give them an opportunity to use their powers. We can circumvent a lizalfos that wields lightning; we cannot circumvent the heat of the day."

Zelda nodded, then turned back to Isha. "May I have one of the sapphire circlets, please? I have the sapphires here." She reached into her pouch, dug out the requisite gems, and handed them to the jeweler.

"It will be my pleasure. An excellent choice, too. You look like you might be travelling through the heat quite a lot. Do you have anything appropriate to wear over it? Your hood looks too warm, and in the warmer parts of the desert it may actually counteract the effects of the circlet."

Zelda blinked, slightly taken aback. She didn't have an immediate answer. "Will the circlet not suffice on its own?"

"On its _own_? Do you mean to walk into the desert with a _bare head_?"

"Well," she started, and then got no further.

"Damn that Saula, this is her fault! Her and that Hylian vai running around in that costume like she's playing dress-up—no, it will not suffice! Look at your skin!" She leaned forward, grabbed Zelda's hand, and held it up to be examined. Zelda had never been made aware of how pale she was until that moment; she had barely tanned at all since leaving the Great Plateau, being more or less completely covered from the sun at all times, and next to the rich depth of Isha's skin her hand looked almost ghostly. "And I know what you are thinking: 'oh, it is because I am pale!' But no, it is because you are _Hylian_. Even if you were of darker skin than me, you could not go out into the desert with a bare head! Do you know why?"

"S-sunburn!"

" _Sunburn_ , she says, as if describing the Calamity as a piglet. Listen: Gerudo are like the sand. Our skin is impervious to the sun, like the Gorons. It is why we can dress as we do. The Rito are protected by their plumage. But Hylians and Zora, the sunlight passes through you as if you were made of glass, and it cooks you more effectively than steam! You contend not only with the heat of the desert but also the very _light_ of the day, which will make the flesh fall from your bones! And _this_ —" she gestured to Zelda's very good, very sturdy tunic, which made Zelda look down at it. "Will not do either."

Zelda lifted her head, filling the first stirrings of defensiveness. "This tunic has served me very well!"

"No longer! You need something that is light and doesn't make so much direct contact with your skin. Look at your friend. Her outfit is much better, though she should be wearing full gloves. Cara!"

"Hmmm?" Cara's voice from the back of the shop was, mostly, disinterested-sounding.

"Get my measuring tape ready! We need to get—" Isha stopped, then looked down hard at her customer. "What is your name?"

"Zelda. And my companion is Paya."

"We need to get Zelda fitted for a new outfit! _And_ a circlet! Right away!"

"W-wait a moment," Zelda said, holding up her hands, as if to slow down proceedings that she clearly had no more control over. "Even if I wanted a new outfit, and I do _not_ , wouldn't I get my measurements taken at a specialist's shop?"

Isha scoffed. "Saula is an excellent seamstress but she is an _awful_ tailor. You go to her first, and she will try to dress you like a tourist in some gaudy outfit that barely fits. I will send you to her with a note from me, with _proper_ measurements, and you _will be outfitted appropriately_ , whether you like it or not."

Zelda set her feet wide and glared up at Isha, who responded by putting her fists on her hips and cocking an eyebrow. The princess counted to five in her head; this woman was presuming too much, by far, and to think that she would be _bullied_ , especially with regards to _clothes_ , was a notion she would need to be disabused of. She could feel the anger bubbling inside of her, waiting to burst out, and she thought of how it would be to give Isha a piece of her mind and march out… and then inevitably go into the desert later, less-than-perfectly prepared.

She sighed, and then she put on her best smile, a shift in expression that made Isha flinch. "That is a wonderful offer. I think I will take you up on it."

The jeweler nodded, somewhat more reserved now. "Of course, of course. Come with me into the back, then." She turned and walked, and Zelda followed the jeweler. The princess had gone three steps when she looked over her shoulder and realized she was leaving her friend by herself.

"I'll be back in a few minutes, Paya." Zelda tried to alleviate Paya's nerves with a smile, was unsure of how well it worked. "Or at least, that's the hope. You should spend some time looking at the accessories here—we have enough money to spare to get one made for you, too, so I want you to look at them carefully. All right?"

Blessed with a task, Paya nodded in return. "Yes. I will do just that, then, while I wait for your return."

Zelda looked back at Paya again as she went to the back room; the Sheikah woman was looking very hard at the jewelry cases, absorbed in her assigned task.

* * *

It was a matter of some debate, among the Sheikah, exactly how much effect training could have on the senses, on a person's ability to react to sudden danger or changes in the environment. That training mattered was clear and undisputed fact; the issue was whether or not natural talent mattered.

There was a sizable faction (in which Paya's grandmother counted herself a member) that argued that training was _all_ that mattered, in questions of mastery. Differences in natural ability only determined the starting point for the servants of the Royal Family, not their endpoint; in fact, there might not be an endpoint at all. This was what the Sheikah of ten thousand years ago had forgotten, in seeking to build technology that could rival the gods, and it was what the Yiga had forgotten even now. The depths of the shadows were bottomless, and so too were the depths of mastery one might attain.

Paya had often heard it argued, when she was small, that she must have had a great deal of natural talent. She was the granddaughter of the revered Impa, after all, who had survived the Calamity and then continued her service for a century beyond that. That she should be capable of great things was expected, regardless of how meek and shy she had been as a child.

Her training had initially rebuffed that assumption: her meekness of character translated into a meekness of the body. Normal training proved to be too much for her, and Dorian, who had been in charge of the youngest trainees at the time, had lamented that the expectations of the tribe might be too heavy for her. That was when her grandmother had taken her under her wing.

Paya thought about that day a lot, the first time she had been told she would be training under the illustrious Impa, and even back then she'd understood how great the pressure was—compounded on top of the shame of not being able to keep up with her peers. She'd cried in front of her grandmother, hadn't been able to stop herself for long minutes, and Impa had sat and waited patiently. When the tears stopped flowing, her grandmother promised her one thing: that she would never demand more than Paya was capable of. For more than a decade she had held to that promise. For more than a decade she had taken a soft-hearted girl and turned her into a soft-hearted woman whose hands were as good as blades, and whose senses were no less sharp.

Paya did not hear it, exactly, when the woman entered the shop behind her on silent feet. She was concentrating very hard on the amber earrings, thinking that they seemed to be the best supplement to her skills and equipment, so she did not see the gentle shadow that passed over the floor, out of her line of sight.

Perhaps she felt the air shift behind her, reading the currents of the wind as it flowed through the hairs on the back of her neck. Perhaps she felt vibrations through the floor as the stranger stepped, silent but unable to hide the reality of her shifting weight. Perhaps she felt the aggressive intent as it descended on her. Later, she would not be able to say why she knew that the woman was there; she simply did.

The woman made a grab for her from behind. Paya ducked so that the reaching hands closed on empty air. As she rose Paya grabbed the jewelry case, tore it loose from its fittings, turned, and swung the display into the side of the woman's head.

The world slowed down.

Wood splintered and glass shattered in a storm of noise that filled the shop. Somewhere in the back, Cara and Isha and especially Zelda were shouting, but Paya did not hear them clearly. The amber earrings twinkled prettily in the light of the sun filtering through the door.

The woman was studiously plain-looking, with dyed brown hair tied in a simple bun and a dress that would not have stood out in a crowd. Her face was twisted in a snarl, her eyes squeezed shut just before the impact, protecting her from the shards of glass that spun in the air. Her left hand was slack, still reaching, while her right hand was partially open, a red orb the size of Paya's pinky nail falling from it. The force of the case being smashed into the assassin's head had knocked her off-balance, but she was bleeding only very little from the temple, the spot where Paya had struck her. More, Paya realized, the woman was not really _bleeding_. There was no blood.

Malice rose out of the wound like evil smoke.

 _Oh Hylia_ , she prayed, and Zelda's face was in her mind.

The world sped back up.

Paya struck her attacker in the eyes, the throat, the chest, hitting deep on vital points that should have incapacitated or killed, but the feedback was wrong, the feeling under her knuckles didn't have enough give. The woman, blinded but recovering, reached for her again, hands crooked into claws. Paya stepped inside her reach, grabbed the woman by the right shoulder and the fabric near the left hip, pivoted, and spun the woman around once before hurling her bodily out the door and into the street. The Sheikah drew her sword, bunched her legs under her, and gathered her strength.

The Yiga woman hit the ground on her back, flipped, and landed on her feet—now in the full regalia of her order. The shine of her white mask was temporarily darkened under a shadow cast by her discarded dress falling through the air.

When the dress blocked her from view, Paya leaped across the distance between them.

The Yiga woman's senses were no sharper than training allowed, and Sheikah training had advanced for a hundred centuries after the Yiga had stagnated. She did not react in time when Paya's sword plunged through the dress and then into her chest.

Malice exploded out of the wound like a geyser, its heat and its corrosive evil scalding Paya's hands as her weight and her momentum brought the Yiga crashing down onto her back. Gloved hands reached up, grabbing at Paya's face as if to claw at her, grasping empty air. Paya watched, unbreathing, as the force of the other woman's struggles weakened. Weakened. Slowed. Ceased.

"Guards! _Guards!_ Yiga! A Yiga inside the walls! Where are the guards!?"

"By the Seven, did you see that? That girl, she—"

With one hand Paya held the sword in place, to keep it still against the dying force of the Malice seeking to push it free. With the other she reached down, reached behind her opponent's head, loosened the fasteners that held the assassin's mask in place. Gently, as gently as she would handle a child, she lifted the mask away.

People were gathering, now, their voices filling the air around her in a cacophony that would drown out the music of the gods. If she focused, she might be able to count how many voices there were around her, daughters and mothers and grandmothers and aunts and cousins. She might be able to tell what they were saying, picking out conversations from the tapestry of noise. That she could have done so occupied a theoretical space in some dark, isolated corner of her brain. That crowd wasn't real. The people might as well have not existed.

The face of her attacker no longer bled Malice. A thin line of crimson trailed from her temple. Another led from the corner of her mouth, staining her lips that same color red. Her teeth, too. Paya stared for a long time at her teeth before moving on the rest of her face. Her disguise had made her look like any Hylian woman, but Paya could see the shining silver at the roots of her hair, at the bright red irises peeking out from under colored lenses. Those eyes stared openly at the sky, and looking at her, seeing her as she really was, Paya imagined that this girl could have been Sheikah. They might have been raised together, even.

And she was dead. Paya had killed her.

" _Paya?_ ** _PAYA!_** "

Zelda's voice cracked, calling for her.

 _I have frightened the princess_ , she thought.

She looked up. Set the mask on the ground. Stepped away from the body. Went to meet her charge.

* * *

There was a great deal of motion and talking, then, as the guard arrived a minute late and tried to bring order back to the situation, cordoning off the Yiga's body and directing the crowd away from it. Something about the presence of that body agitated the guards, making them both angry and wary, but Zelda couldn't guess at what the source of that was. The guards wouldn't have noticed her at all except that Paya stuck to her, now, and the guards _all_ had their eyes on Paya.

Isha had moved from fury over the destruction of her display to an even deeper fury that a Yiga assassin had found their way inside the city walls, and then inside of her very shop, threatening her customers and herself. There was no one to vent that fury to, so she stood outside the door of her shop, arms crossed, her expression daring anyone to approach her and question her. The guards would, in time, but surely they'd regret the approach. Cara was humming tunelessly on the opposite side of the door, as if nothing in particular had happened. No one moved to clean up the mess; there might be something important in the middle of the ruined shards.

Afternoon turned to evening, the body was taken away, the crowd dispersed of its own accord, and at last two guards approached Paya and Zelda. They were tall, broad women, heavily muscled, carrying spears to scale with their height. In spite of their obvious power and weapons training, Zelda noticed that they exchanged nervous glances while approaching.

"The two of you," the one on the left said, her Hylian slow and precise, "were at the center of this incident?"

Paya's expression had changed very little since the fight; she didn't show fatigue, fear, regret… anything that Zelda would have expected. Perhaps she was in shock. Zelda recalled how she had felt a century ago, the first time she had seen a person die—how much worse must it have been for Paya, who had driven home the sword with her own hands? But she'd reacted normally to conversation, had seemed stern as she kept all of her senses trained on the outside world, keeping vigil against the appearance of more Yiga. She'd returned to some semblance of normalcy almost instantly.

Still. Zelda replied first.

"My friend was attacked," she said.

"In _my shop_ ," Isha said. _Inside the city walls_ hung in the air.

"Yes," the guard replied, her sigh rippling the fabric of her veil. "There is no doubt that she was only defending herself. Frankly, anyone who kills one of the Yiga is doing us an immense favor." She turned specifically toward Paya. "Still, if you are well enough, we have some questions. If possible, we want to better understand what happened here." She waved her hand at the now-vacant spot where the body had lain. "Not the fight. What came before that."

Zelda was about to speak on Paya's behalf again—surely the authorities could wait a day before getting a statement—when the Sheikah spoke up.

"Of course. If you'll allow, I would be happy to explain what took place."

Zelda looked at Paya as the guards looked at each other. Paya's expression was still neutral, leaning toward warm, not unlike when Zelda had first seen her in Kakariko Village. She could tell what Paya was feeling, absolutely and without question, if she called on Hylia's power—but that felt like an invasion, now. They would talk about it later. They would commune, if it would help.

"Certainly," the guard said. "We should probably talk inside of the shop."

The six of them entered together. Between the two guards, Isha, Cara, Paya, and Zelda, the front of the shop felt crowded, but only Paya actually stepped into the midst of the debris, glass and wood crunching underneath her feet. The other five kept a respectful distance, backs to the wall where they had space.

"She came in behind me here," Paya said, standing in front of the place where the amber earrings had been displayed. "I was examining the jewelry, trying to decide which would be most useful on our journey, when I felt her reaching." She pivoted forward at the waist, then held her hands in the air as if grabbing hold of the now-gone case. "I ducked beneath her grab, then hit her with the display case. I was able to force her outside."

"It's a wonder you didn't kill her at the first blow." Every eye turned to Cara, who shrugged. "They're good cases. Heavy. You reduced one to splinters. If you hit _me_ that hard with one I don't think I'd get back up."

"Me neither," said the second guard, speaking for the first time.

Paya shrugged. Nobody else had seen the Malice; the only reason Zelda had known was that she could feel it hanging in the air afterward. Zelda still didn't know what to think of that, what the presence of Malice meant, but she knew it was why the Yiga had lasted so long against Paya. Why Paya had been forced to kill.

"The assassin's art includes many kinds of training," Paya said. "I am of the Sheikah, and many of the Yiga arts are derived from ours, so I recognize certain techniques." She turned, knelt in the glass, gently moved pieces around with her fingers, careful not to cut herself. "When I hit her, she dropped something. If I remember, it was red." Another few moments searching and she grabbed hold of an object, dusted it off, and held it aloft.

The guards, proprietors, and Zelda all leaned in to look. It was a red orb about the size of Zelda's pinky nail.

"Medicine?" she asked.

"Of a sort. Please step back for a moment." Once they had, Paya placed the sphere on the open palm of her right hand. "Please forgive my impropriety." Paya licked the tip of her left forefinger, then pressed it against the orb.

Instantly there was a low hiss, and a wavering in the air above Paya's palm. Paya turned her face away and removed her finger. After a moment the hissing stopped, and the wavering in the air dissipated, and Paya turned to look at it again. She got to her feet, held out the orb for them to see again: there was a depression in its surface, precisely where Paya had touched it.

" _This_ ," Paya said, "is a special sort of medicine, perfectly harmless until its surface reacts with moisture. It's specially formulated so that it will not dissolve in water, sweat, or blood—only saliva." She did not frown, though Zelda had expected she would. "Once placed in the mouth, it will vaporize into a gas that renders the victim unconscious for a period of time dependant on the dosage. It can last for days, but it's much safer to dose for a few hours."

Zelda stared at Paya. She felt as if her entire body had gone numb. The world kept moving around her as if nothing that they'd just heard mattered, and Zelda couldn't move with it.

"So the Sheikah have tools like this, too," Isha said.

"We did once," Paya said, and offered no more than that.

Now the guards stepped away from the wall, and the one who had approached first said, "So the Yiga was attempting to abduct you. We have no experience with them doing such a thing—they are assassins, not kidnappers. Why would they try to take you alive?"

"We are freeing the Divine Beasts." The voice came from Zelda's mouth, though she did not feel herself saying the words. Everyone stared at _her_ , now. She didn't feel that, either. "The Yiga seek to stymie our efforts. If possible, we would like to have an audience with the chief tomorrow."

Silence, for long moments. In that gap Paya reached among the glass, picked up the amber earrings, handed them to the stun-faced Isha.

"You do not need an appointment to meet the chief," the first guard said, at last. "There is a period of time around noon every day where she will speak to anyone who approaches her. If your goal is _that_ lofty," and her tone betrayed that she did not believe this, "then Chief Riju will be most interested in what you have to say."

* * *

The guards did not have many questions beyond that point. After the last were asked, and Isha's complaints were registered, Zelda and Paya were directed toward the inn. Isha told them to come back tomorrow for Zelda's circlet. Zelda asked Paya which of the jewelry she had decided on; Paya said the amber earrings; Zelda paid for them up-front, and it was agreed that both accessories would be picked up in the morning.

They made their way to the inn, rented a room, and refused the spa service, for now. They washed, dressed for bed.

During all of this they did not speak.

As she got under the covers of her bed, Zelda said, "Why did that woman try to grab you?"

Paya had been in a quiet part of her mind for many hours; it had served as insulation against the fact of what she'd done that afternoon, the feel of the Yiga woman writhing and falling still. She couldn't keep it out forever, she knew, but she tried, hoping to avoid the worst of the shock and to keep from frightening Zelda or shaming herself.

Zelda's question was so frank, so nearly plaintive, that it pulled Paya out of that place completely. She stared at the back of Zelda's head until the princess rolled over and stared right back at her with her enormous and enormously earnest blue eyes. She couldn't help but answer.

"They know how dangerous I am," Paya said. "They knew it would be hard to abduct me. Forgive me for my presumption, but… do you mean to ask why they didn't try for you?"

"No." Zelda's forehead creased as she scowled. "After what happened on Death Mountain, they probably think I'm too dangerous to attempt to approach that way. What I mean is, what would they gain in your abduction?"

Paya was quiet for a moment, then. She didn't think Zelda would use her senses now. The princess almost never did, when the conversation was so serious.

"I believe they would have used me as a hostage, to lure you into some kind of trap. They do not know how far your holy awareness extends, but—" Here she stopped, looked at her charge, _really_ looked, and felt something in her heart shift. "I know how hard it is to think of something nearly happening to someone close to you."

Zelda's voice was almost a croak, "I can't stop thinking about how close I came to never seeing you again."

Paya smiled, as best she could. "They know that your awareness extends further than the senses of your body. They couldn't risk hurting me, Zelda. You would know if I died. And it didn't happen, did it? I'm here. We both are."

That Zelda was having this conversation at all spoke to the depth of her exhaustion. She nodded, but she kept staring at Paya, as if making sure she wouldn't disappear, until sleep took her.

Paya stared at her princess for a while longer. She thought about how her feelings for Zelda differed from Zelda's for her. Or if they did, now. She wasn't sure of herself, even; how could she be sure of anyone else? They needed to have that talk soon. She thought of how she needed to stop running. She thought of how much more at peace she'd be. How much easier these conversations would be.

She thought of how easy it had been to lie to Zelda, just now.

She thought of how the Yiga would have kept her alive, yes, but they would have used her pain like a signal flare to draw Zelda in faster. She thought of the forbidden arts that she had read of in her grandmother's library. She thought of the old Zora sergeant who had known the history of the Sheikah. She thought of how different Yiga torture must have been, after uncounted generations.

Paya took out her diary. She opened it to a fresh page. She placed her pen against the page. She hesitated.

She thought of where the Yiga woman's body was, now. She thought of her sword, clean of blood but not of violence. She thought of her hands. She thought of Zelda.

She thought, and could not stop thinking.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE_** :And now we're cooking with gas. I've been looking forward to the next handful of chapters for a while; I hope everyone ends up enjoying them.

Please feel free to let me know if there's anything amiss or anything in particular you're looking forward to seeing.


	32. The Gerudo Chief

"I am told," said Riju, the Chief of the Gerudo, "that I have you to thank for exposing one of the Yiga who infiltrated our city." She did not say 'killed,' and Zelda wondered why—Paya, whom Riju was addressing, had done much more than expose the assassin.

The Gerudo Chief was a young woman—younger than Zelda and Paya by at least a few years, young enough that she would have only come up to Zelda's shoulder standing up, which was saying a lot for one of the Gerudo. She looked even smaller on the vast throne that served as the seat for the matrilineal chain of chiefs, multiple cushions piled on top of each other so that she could be seated high enough to rest her arms naturally. There were steps in front of the throne so that she could set herself atop this mountain of support. It was a testament to Riju's careful upbringing that she was able to recline amidst the evidence of her smallness and look as comfortable and assured as a woman twice her age and twice her size. Zelda and Paya were kneeling in front of her, and Paya had only blanched a very little when Zelda bent the knee.

"The assassin exposed herself, Chief Riju," Paya said. "I simply did as training demanded so that I could protect myself and my companion."

"Hmph." The room was lined by guards, but the one who stood next to the throne—Buliara, Zelda was sure that was her name—was a world removed from them. She was thickly muscled, half a head taller than the average warrior of her people, and when she did bother to move she had a sense of deep grace and power. She reminded Zelda of an enormous cat, all seeming leisure hiding a fundamentally dangerous power and speed. That impression was familiar, and Zelda tried to remember why while Riju scowled at her guard.

"If you have anything to say, Buliara," Riju said, trying to be withering and not quite hitting the mark, "please feel free to speak your mind."

"As my Chief commands," Buliara responded, though her eyes never left Paya. "It occurs to me that if she 'simply did as training demanded' then her training must be very intense indeed. Witnesses from the guard suggest that she is a capable, seasoned warrior." She shifted her shoulders, the muscles beneath her skin rolling. "It also seems that she was _targeted_ by the Yiga."

Paya blushed, lowered her eyes to floor, and Zelda had to fight the urge to snap at their hosts. Being questioned this way was about all that Paya could withstand—to be subject to more attentions than that would overwhelm her.

"More likely the Yiga were targeting me, however obliquely," Zelda cut in. Paya breathed through her nose, Buliara scowled, and Riju tilted her head while a faint smile played across her mouth. "Forgive my impertinence. May I address you?"

The Gerudo Chief waved her hand, her smile shifting over into a grin. "Please." A twist of her mouth as she thought for a moment. "You should probably stand, while you're at it."

Zelda did. The act of standing gave her a moment to go over a list of possibilities: Riju knew that something was off about her. Buliara was, according to some of the other guards, the effective head of the entire defensive element of Gerudo Town. It made sense that she would have heard what they (she) had said to the guards the night before and reported it to Riju.

 _It would be easy to focus solely on the Chief and her youth,_ Zelda thought, straightening her tunic as she stood, adjusting the Sheikah Slate, marking how both of the women in front of her glanced at it, _but anyone who looks at Buliara and mistakes her for a guard is missing a great deal. She is to the Chief as Impa undoubtedly was to the royal family a century ago_. _Well. It doesn't matter. We'll need their help in the time to come, and our enemies already know we're here_.

"We are attempting to awaken the Divine Beasts," said Zelda. The silence in the room suddenly became much thicker, the tension higher; Riju and Buliara did not attempt to feign surprise, but the sharp intake of breath from some of the other guards in the room spoke to disbelief, some degree of anger, and… did she feel hope in the air? She hoped she did. "The Hero is locked in battle with the Calamity, but we hope to break that stalemate. We—"

"Hold," Riju said, her hand lifted. The Chief cut her eyes toward her guardian, and Buliara struck her greatsword hard against the floor.

As a body the other guards turned and left the room. None of them threw a glance over their shoulder, though Zelda spotted at least one who was actively fighting the urge. In seconds the only ones present were herself, Paya, Riju, and Buliara.

"I think you can stand up now, Paya," Zelda said. Buliara glared at her, but Riju nodded, and Zelda touched Paya's shoulder so that her own guard knew to rise. She returned her attention to the woman on the throne. "You already know of what we've been doing, then?"

"We have received reports," Riju said, slowly, carefully, "from travelers and merchants all over Hyrule. The Divine Beast of the Zora has ceased overfilling their reservoir, and the Gorons are no longer menaced by their own mountain. I'm told, in fact, that the temperature on Death Mountain is beginning to drop, however marginally." She leaned her cheek on her fist. "More, I'm told that two Hylian women were present in the city when the Divine Beasts were tamed—one with golden hair and the other with silver. My apologies; we Gerudo do not see many Sheikah." She let that hang in the air. "More accurate, though, are the reports that one of you was carrying a Sheikah Slate."

Zelda's fingertips brushed against it reflexively—not protectively, but to make sure that it was still there.

Riju smiled again. "Buliara." Her guard gave a quick nod. "Doesn't she look familiar? Not that I've seen anyone like her, but… I recall that the Great Urbosa was dear friend to the Queen of Hyrule in her time. When the Queen passed, she wrote a great deal about the Queen's daughter, Zelda. You look so much like the princess, as Urbosa described her."

Silence in the room again, deeper and more insistent than any of those that had come before. _This is fine. This matters not at all. Our enemies already know we are here. What different that friends should know, too?_

"As you say, Chief Riju." Buliara's voice was low, her words carefully meted out.

"Regardless," Riju said. "I can guess to your purpose here. You wish to free the Divine Beast Vah Naboris from the power that drives it to roam around the desert in fury." Here Riju let her mask slip, for just a moment, where it had not done so before: she touched the fingertips of her left hand to her brow, as if treating the pain of a headache with focused pressure. "You've probably heard something about it from the townsfolk. It seems to wander closer all the time. My people fear that soon it will destroy the city completely."

"We would prevent that, if we can." This conversation felt almost normal, now; she had had it two times before, albeit in different circumstances. "There is a terrible spirit that has taken possession of the Divine Beast, and it," her voice caught in her throat. She stopped, examined herself, ignoring Buliara's raised eyebrow and the turn of Paya's head. Zelda was not, as best she could tell, upset about this. Talking about the entrapment of the Champions was as routine to her as the rest of this conversation. It was horrifying, yes, but she was working to fix it. She _needed_ to fix it.

"It—?" Riju prompted her.

 _Why is it harder to say this of Urbosa?_

"It is the same monster that felled Lady Urbosa a century ago. Her spirit is on the Divine Beast, too, waiting to be freed." Nothing now. What had that feeling been, before? An echo from something outside of memory? She almost didn't notice Buliara's glare or how Riju's eyes had started to widen. "We have already freed the spirits of the Zora and Goron Champions, Mipha and Daruk. If you wish, I can provide proof that we are capable of—"

"That won't be necessary."

"I beg your pardon?"

Riju leaned forward in her chair, now. Her mass of red hair, bound behind her, made her seem even smaller than she was. In another time, another place, with another person, the Gerudo Chief would not have been so honest with how she felt; Zelda could not know that, though.

"I believe you. There is… no real question about who you are, I don't think, though I admit I do want to see the proof you could provide. Still. It doesn't matter. Even if the Great Urbosa's spirit is trapped on Vah Naboris, we are powerless to lend her aid."

Zelda scowled. She had _just gotten finished_ explaining how they'd done this before, wondered if she would have to repeat herself but Riju shook her head.

"Vah Naboris is not like the other Divine Beasts. You've seen the sandstorm that enshrouds it from a distance? That sandstorm is controlled by Naboris itself, a defensive mechanism, but it's only half of what Vah Naboris can do: the other half is that it controls lightning." Riju's smile was wry, now. "I've heard of your battle alongside the Zora. I wish I could have seen it. If we were to attempt something similar with Vah Naboris, it would kill every single woman who came within range of it, and the Divine Beast's reach is _long_."

Zelda blinked, going over possibilities in her head. "How fast can it generate bolts of lightning?"

"One strike every few seconds, and its targeting is very precise—it does not miss." Riju straightened her back, grinned ruefully. "I can tell by your face you are wondering how I know that, and if we lost lives in exchange for the information."

Zelda nodded. Asking would have been an awful thing, but if Riju could just read it in her face, then there was no point in trying to hide it.

"I am glad to say that we did not. I went and obtained this information myself, utilizing the blessing of my ancestors. Unfortunately," Riju gestured to her right, and for the first time Zelda noticed that a carved wooden head sat on a dais next to the throne, clearly meant to hold some decorative piece, "the instrument of my ancestors, the Thunder Helm, was recently stolen by the Yiga. Using its power, the Chiefs of the Gerudo can control lightning. I'm not yet fully proficient in the art, but even I can turn away the lightning thrown by the Divine Beast."

"The Yiga," Zelda said to herself. Buliara was apologizing to Riju, and Riju was telling her guard that there was no point in apologizing, and all of these fell away from Zelda's ears. She thought of the woman dead in the street, of the fight—or the very end of it that she had managed to see. She did not see how Paya was staring at her in this moment, was too absorbed in her thoughts to perceive how her friend was praying that this conversation would not turn out the way Zelda was already steering it. "They stole the Thunder Helm, and they attempted to abduct my friend. Is their base near here?"

Buliara and Riju both looked up from their conversation. It was Buliara who spoke first. "Yes. As best as we have been able to determine through scouting, their base is in a canyon to the north, between the desert and the highlands."

Riju continued for her. "We have been attempting to muster enough troops to mount an expedition and assault on the base, but they've been harrying us at every turn, and the populace is already uneasy with Vah Naboris wandering the desert. If we leave the city undefended, I fear that the result will be much worse than a stolen helmet."

Zelda turned her head to the north, as if she could see though the walls, and she wondered.

"Thank you for meeting with us, Chief Riju," she said. "We have been given much to think about. May we be excused, so that we may confer in private?"

"Of course. Return whenever you like. The two of you are guests of the Gerudo."

"If you wish to speak with the guards," Buliara said, "you can find them training in the yard adjoining this chamber. You only have to leave through that door."

"Thank you. I will do just that."

* * *

It would not be fair to say that Paya's attention had slipped; all of her senses were open, as wide as they'd ever been, so that even in the middle of the training yard where the city guard practiced with spear and bow and sword, over the sound of voices raised in battle cries and the clash of metal on metal and the glare of the sun, she was still aware of almost everything around her. She had counted every woman in the yard, had taken note of which weapons they currently bore and how proficient they seemed to be based on posture and grip. She would know almost instantly if anyone else were to enter here, posing a threat to herself or to her princess.

So, no. Her attention had not slipped. Say instead that there was a part of her mind that was occupied, as Zelda spoke to the captain of the guard and then to one of the sergeants. Her mind had gone north, as Zelda's had some minutes ago, but she had some better idea of what to suspect. At least, she thought she did. She poured over that expectation, the understanding of what Zelda was already planning, and it precluded her ability to fully engage with any of the conversation around her. This wasn't to her disadvantage; anyone around her, Zelda included, would think she was only acting as a very focused bodyguard.

"Hey, I haven't seen Barta. Where's she gone off to?"

"She said she was going to scout the thieves' hideout, but then she left before we could say anything. Now that I think about it, she's been gone for two days. I wonder what happened to her…"

"You— _ARE YOU SERIOUS?!_ "

Zelda was looking back and forth between the guards as the sergeant's shouting grew even angrier and more emphatic, too absorbed in the unfolding drama to notice much else. That was good. She was thinking ahead, but she could still be in the moment.

 _But, no_ , Paya thought, _that's not good. If she's only in this moment, then she doesn't understand what's happening. She doesn't understand what she intends to do._

Paya went around in circles in her head, the kind of wordless fretting that prevented coherent thought or inner monologue. She went through the mechanical motions of following Zelda, of answering questions, but the gap she left in conversation was eventually noticed when Zelda stopped prompting her and the trek back to the inn was made in silence.

"I think I would like to try the spa package tonight," Zelda said as they passed by the reception desk. This was to Paya, so the receptionist didn't do more than perk up.

"If you think that is best."

"Yes. The extra rupees don't seem too much compared to being properly rested, and I'd like to experience a spa once."

"As you say."

They returned to their room. Zelda drew the curtain shut, took off her cloak, sat on the edge of her bed. Paya, in turn, sat on the edge of her own, the two of them facing each other.

"I should go to the shop that Isha recommended. And hers, too, actually. Our orders should be ready by now." A pause. The princess leaned forward, tilting her head, and her eyes were so wide and green. "Talk to me," she said. Not a command but a request, almost plaintive.

Paya had been hiding in that quiet place in her mind, pacing around the idea of what Zelda was about to do—what she was willing to commit both of them toward. Her princess's voice called her out, so she returned, rising back up to the physical world. Zelda's closeness and the openness of her staring should have embarrassed her—but Paya was still holding onto the idea, and it was heavier than her own reactions.

"You intend to get the Thunder Helm back."

Zelda was quiet for a moment, considering that. Then:

"I intend to ask you if you think it's possible."

"Possible? Yes. It's possible. It's." Paya realized how long she had been holding this in. The woman on the road outside of Kakariko, Zelda tumbling on Death Mountain, the blights who bore the mark of Ganon, hands reaching for her own neck, a sword in her hands plunging into another's chest. They'd all been sitting in that quiet place in her heart. That place was getting full. Soon, it would burst. She couldn't let it out yet. She had to talk, still. "It's possible. You could do it, certainly. You're—"

"I am not invincible," Zelda said, firmly enough that it was almost a reprimand. "I'm… I admit it would be _very_ difficult for any of the Yiga to really hurt me, but we are talking about their _den_. We might be dealing with _all_ of them, all at once. Please, Paya." She reached across the space between them, touching Paya's hands with her fingertips. "I need to hear what you really think. If we want to retrieve the Thunder Helm, then what are we going against?"

Paya blinked. The heat still rose in her face at the touch of Zelda's hand. She looked away, focused again on the conversation, on the idea, on the question, on the fear. "I wish that I knew. I… I only know stories about the Yiga, really. We, the Sheikah, have been so isolated for so long that we've nearly lost track of them completely. Grandmother tells me that until a hundred years ago we had thought them extinct, and a hundred years hasn't been enough time to learn about them, after the Calamity. I am far more ignorant in this regard than I should be. I'm sorry."

Zelda nodded slowly, withdrew her hand, kept studying Paya's face. "You're not sure… but you have suspicions."

"They're… not really worth…"

"I want to hear them, Paya."

She paused, breathed, arranged herself. The quiet place was not full to bursting yet. She could take out some small piece of it without it spilling forth.

"When I hit that woman with the display case, I didn't intend to kill her. I was reacting out of surprise and fear, and in those situations, I am trained to strike with maximum force. The impact should have killed her. Instead, it only cut open a spot on her temple." She swallowed. "I thought that it was blood, but at second glance I saw that it wasn't."

"It was Malice."

Yes. Of course, Zelda would have sensed it. Paya nodded. "It was. That is why I used my sword—your blessing—to kill her. It neutralized the Malice, kept it from keeping her alive, animating her body to fight on when she should have fallen." Her hand was not shaking. She was sure. "They sent an assassin who had the Malice inside of her, who bled it as if it had replaced her blood. I suspect… I suspect that whatever we find in the Yiga's base, it will be something truly awful. They have worshipped Ganon for ten thousand years. If he should grant them any blessing at all, if the Malice propagates inside of them…"

"They will be worse than the monsters that roam the land," Zelda finished.

Paya nodded again. "Forgive my reticence. They are not my people. We split from each other long ago. Still, when I saw that woman on the ground, I thought how much she looked like one of us. Like a Sheikah, I mean. And she let that… thing… inside of her. It changed her. It may have changed all of them. It was like looking into a mirror, and seeing myself as I may have been, if I'd been born in another tribe. I am." She breathed again. She could get this out. "I am afraid."

Silence between them. No one was out in the hall, at least not that Paya could hear.

"I could go in without you," Zelda said. "I wouldn't fight them with swords and arrows. I would use all of my power to take back the Thunder Helm. It might be safer that way, even." The Princess's eyes were wide again, looking at a spot just past Paya's head; she was thinking very hard, apparently. "I suspect that the Calamity is no longer trying to kill me every time it senses me using my power. This might be the safest method we have to get back the Helm and approach Vah Naboris."

"I would sooner die," Paya said, "than let you go into that place alone."

Zelda said nothing. Paya said nothing, too, strangling her urge to apologize. She would not apologize for the truth. Not this time. Not about this. She _would_ protect Zelda. Even against the Calamity itself. Even if she was only an insect clambering over the feet of giants.

What a freeing idea, she realized.

After a long, long time, Zelda nodded.

Paya said, "There are preparations we will need to make first. We may not be able to leave until tomorrow morning. Will you give me a moment to write in my diary?"

"Of course. I'll check our equipment."

"It will be best if you ready your armor. There is a weapon I think will serve us.

* * *

Riju sighed, taking a moment to focus on her breathing. In through the nose, hold for three seconds, out slowly through the mouth. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. The moments of quiet she got to experience during the day were rare, and fleeting, but her breathing could extend the experience of them, let her carry the quiet around with her after the noise had re-asserted herself. Buliara had taught it to her, after Riju's mother had died. If she listened carefully, she could sometimes hear her guard doing it, too. This was not one of those times, but that was all right. She'd make the quiet last as long as it could.

Which, in the end, wasn't very long.

A guard's voice from outside: "Get out of here, kid! This is no place to play!"

The rejoinder, from a girl maybe a third Riju's age: "I'm not playing! I have a message for the Chief!"

"Oh, a message, huh? All right. Do you want me to give it to her? I'll make sure she gets it immediately."

"No, you won't! You just want me to go away!"

Riju looked over at Buliara, who was rolling her eyes before noticing that her Chief was trying to catch her attention. Riju gestured with two fingers; Buliara knit her brow. Riju made the gesture again.

"Let the child in," Buliara said, her voice filling the audience chamber and echoing out and over the argument. "The Chief will see her, now."

There was a very loud, very childish, very rude noise from outside, and then the girl appeared in the doorway. She spent a moment looking up and around, openly shocked by the grandeur of the room— _was I ever surprised by anything that much, when I was young?_ —before remembering what she was doing and where she was, dropping into an almost picturesque bow.

"Chief Riju," the girl said.

"I am told," Riju said, "that you have a message for me."

"Y-yes, Chief! It's right here!" The girl produced a paper envelope, sealed with wax, the outside marked in a script that Riju could not make out at that distance, especially given how much the kid was waving it around. Behind it was a book, roughly the same size as the envelope, though much thicker.

"You may approach the Chief," Buliara said, clearly as eager to get this audience over with as Riju was eager to see the message.

The girl bowed again and then crossed the floor with an even, measured step, as if going too fast would offend the people around her. Riju, for her part, tried very hard not to betray her impatience. She still couldn't make out the script.

When the girl drew close enough, Riju held out her hand, and the girl placed the envelope and book delicately on her palm.

"Thank you. Tell me, do you know who this is from?"

"Yes, Chief. It's from the Hylian lady with silver hair!" The girl leaned in close, as if the two of them were conspiring, and gave Buliara a wary glance. Clearly, she considered Riju a fellow child, which made Riju wince and Buliara smirk. "I heard that she fought one of the Yiga and saved the jewelry shop in the square, so I thought it might be important."

"Thank you," Riju said. Why would the Sheikah send her a message? "You've done very well, getting this to me. Tell me, were you paid for the delivery?"

"Yes, Chief. She gave me 5 rupees."

Riju nodded. "A fair sum, I think. Still, as I am your Chief, I cannot let her generosity supersede my own. Speak with my attendant, Buliara, and she will give you 10 rupees as a reward for your service."

The girl's eyes lit up and Buliara's eyes nearly bugged out of her head while she mouthed the words _I'll give her what?_

"Thank you, Chief! If you ever need any letters delivered, let me know!"

"I'll be sure to do that."

The girl scampered—pranced, really—over to Buliara, who looked very severe and ominous in a way that did not affect the girl at all because it was cut through by the resentful opening of her wallet.

Riju took a moment to turn the envelope in her hands. Her name was written on it in Hylian, though the script wasn't quite the same as that used in Central Hyrule—more angular, perhaps.

She turned the paper in her hands, savoring the moment.

She opened the envelope, and while Buliara was counting out rupees the Chief began to read.

* * *

Chief Riju,

I hope that this writing finds you well and apologize for the removed method by which I am forced to communicate with you. I have caused a disruption in your city in my failure to handle the Yiga assassin more capably and can only hope that the work I do now might serve to alleviate the pains caused by my inadequacy.

My name is Paya, of the Sheikah. I am traveling with Zelda, the Crown Princess of Hyrule, who is charged by the goddess Hylia to bring an end to the threat of the Calamity, Ganon.

I tell you this not to evince the importance of the task we undertake; that very importance should preclude me telling you these things, as secrecy is one of the only defenses we have against our enemies. However, as our secrecy has been compromised and there are still other concerns to be addressed, I feel that I am left with no choice but to burden you with the knowledge of what is to come. Please forgive my presumption.

The Princess Zelda has decided that we will travel to the lair of the Yiga and retrieve the Thunder Helm. There can be no doubt that she will succeed in this aim: I pray that you do not suffer a situation or disaster that would prove it to you, but please believe me when I say that she is the most powerful force freely walking the land of Hyrule, and that she will return in triumph. Far less certain is my own return, which is why I have entrusted you with this information and the diary attached to it.

Should I fail to return with my liege, please take the diary I have given to you and see it delivered to Impa in Kakariko Village in the Necluda Region. The diary is a recording of my travels with the princess and contains information that may be vital in the battle against the Calamity. Should I die, this information _must_ reach the Sheikah elder. Many lives may depend on it.

I had intended to translate the diary into plain language; it is currently encoded, and if read now would only seem like a recording of my own musings and reflections. As we are now faced with the task of confronting the Yiga, I will no longer have time to edit and decode this information, so it must be sent in its raw form.

I humbly beseech you to fulfill my two requests:

Firstly, if Zelda should return without me, get this diary to Impa.

Secondly, _do not read it_. Even encoded, the information therein could still reveal itself and endanger anyone who becomes privy to it. Again: _please do not read it_. And, more importantly and most especially, _do not let Zelda read it_.

I go now with the Princess to prepare for our battle. May the light of Hylia illuminate your path.

With apologies and gratitude,

Paya

* * *

The lynel of Ploymus Mountain returned, in time, as the beasts of shadow did when he earth bled; not even the burning light of the Divine Beasts could kill it forever. The mountain still belonged to it, though it now avoided the long, killing slope burned out by the ancient weapon, where the ground had become so smooth, so slick, that its hooves could find no purchase.

The days passed for it. The Zora did not come near it. It did not hunt; it waited.

One day, a presence slipped near to it, ascending the waterfalls. Like Zora, but bigger.

The beast sniffed at the air, trying to catch the scent, but whatever the presence was, it was downwind of the lynel and moving quickly. The lynel's senses could not suss out the location; whatever it was, it could hide its presence, even its intent. Like a hunter.

A flash of memory, and the lynel turned to face the direction it knew the threat was coming from. Its sword and shield were in its hands. The air around it burned with the ozone-smell of the thunder arrows buried in trees and stones.

A whistle, the lowest sound in the world. The lynel turned, rearing. The sound of its own body masked the sound of a bowstring drawn taut, and then the release.

Fire exploded beneath the lynel's chin, blasting its perceptions to smithereens, and it roared as the strength left its limbs. It sank, catching itself with its shield, heaving its breath.

Footsteps. Footsteps coming _fast_. It couldn't move. Eyes blurry while it gathered itself, the lynel still looked up.

It saw a figure standing on a stone, holding a bow with a thread made of light. The hunter. The hunter from before.

It saw another figure, closer, much closer, small, insignificant, but wearing the skins of Guardians, golden mane flowing behind as they charged.

Closing the last of the distance, the nearer figure raised their weapon. The lynel saw a sword.

The lynel saw that the sword was lined with serrated, rotating, glowing _teeth_.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE_** : How about that sequel trailer, huh? Sure does change the way I see the events of the first game! Also possibly some part of how the ending to this story will work.

I'm fighting the urge to cut Zelda and/or Paya's hair but it's very, very hard.


	33. The Yiga Hideout

The sun had yet to rise on Gerudo Town when two women set forth from its northern exit, the reins of carefully-trained sand seals in their hands. The riders were unpracticed, their footing on their shields perfectly orthodox because they were not experienced enough to have their own style, but the beasts in question were gentle and calm and responsive not just to their motions but to their very moods. The seals moved slowly as their riders became used to the motion, slowly picking up speed as the confidence of the two women built.

One woman was dressed in light-colored, breezy layers, loose-fitting pantaloons and long-sleeved tunic letting the wind play across her skin while an opaque head-wrap protected her head and neck and face from the Sun. Her eyes peeked out at the world, wide and searching as if not used to having a subtle limitation placed on her peripheral vision. She still wore the same boots she'd been wearing upon entering the town; this was the only visible article of clothing she retained from the day before. The outfit was practical, comfortable, left nothing exposed to the light of the Sun, and was remarkably cool; there was little doubt, either in the woman or her companion, that this had been a very good investment.

The second woman wore the same outfit she'd been wearing for the course of their trip, though she'd adjusted it to protect the previously exposed skin of her shoulders and hands. Amber earrings glittered with fairy magic in the shade of her hat, which was pulled low against the coming of the day.

The two of them spoke little as they prepared for the trek north. They checked their gear, their weapons, each other's protection against sunburn, and then turned the sand seals toward the distant canyon. The seals went slowly, and in time the women gave them more rein, and then they flew across the sands more swiftly than a horse might run over a field of grass.

After a time, day broke.

A little after dawn, three more women set out to the north from Gerudo Town, following the trail left by the two preceding them, their sand seals barking in excitement and exertion.

* * *

The Gerudo Highlands rose in front of them, presenting cliff faces as high or higher than the Great Plateau, stone walls separating the scorching heat of the desert from the frigid flats that lay beyond. The walls went on for kilometers in either direction, unbroken save for one spot where the stone parted and turned in on itself: the mouth of the canyon, they'd been told.

They rode the sand seals uphill, to the opening in the stone, and even though the Sun was high they found themselves in the shade as the canyon walls vied with each other to smother the sky. The shade was cooler than the open desert had been, of course.

"We are close," Paya said, stepping off of her shield and putting it on her back. Zelda tried very hard to listen for anything odd in their surroundings, which was difficult over the sound of the seals' heavy breathing. "We will be there in two hours, but we are _very_ close."

Zelda nodded and said, "Should we be ready for battle?"

Paya stared into the shadows further in the canyon and seemed to wrestle with her response. Zelda fought the urge to scold herself; she'd said _we_ , even though she was the only one who'd have to change clothes for the sake of confrontation. Better just to have done so and be ready.

"Not yet." Paya's voice was still low, and Zelda stared at her. "I do no think they will want to meet us here. It's too open."

"Too _open_?"

"I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. The Yiga will not attack us until they have every advantage possible. They want you in their hideout; they want you to face them where they are most powerful. You could dress for battle, but we will be exposed to the Sun periodically and we would be in more danger from _it_ than from _them_. We'll move slowly, keeping to the shadows, but I do not think we will run into any guards—they know you're coming, and won't risk open confrontation with you."

Zelda scowled, thought it over, decided against donning her Guardian-derived armor, and nodded.

The sand seals were exactly as well-trained as they'd been led to believe; when Zelda put her shield on her back and patted the seal who'd pulled her on its broad neck, it made a low bark and then sank into a restful posture. They'd been told there were limits to how long a sand seal would wait for them, but they were supposed to be very patient. Looking at the quiet grace of one at rest, how it tossed loose sand onto its back with its flippers, Zelda believed it. She had to stop herself from saying goodbye to the animals as they walked away.

As Paya suggested, they moved in the shadows, keeping to the spaces beneath jutting rock shelves along the canyon walls. They moved quickly, but the going was harder than it would have been at the center, the footing less even. Rarely, Paya would hold up her hand, and Zelda would stop while Paya listened and looked. After a time Paya would determine that there was no threat, and they would move on.

The canyon stretched on, and on, and the further they walked the more Zelda became aware of a distant pressure that pressed at her temples. It wasn't a _physical_ effect, she was sure; when she reached for the power to ascertain the source of it, the pressure grew more pronounced rather than less.

"There is Malice ahead," she said to Paya. Paya stopped, turned to listen. "A great deal of it."

They stood in silence for long moments, the Sun wheeling slowly overhead.

"That stands to reason," Paya said, her voice still barely above a whisper. How the Sheikah could make a whisper _carry_ that way baffled Zelda utterly. "The girl who attacked us in town," and it took a considerable effort for Zelda not to object to that phrasing, "was redolent with Ganon's power. None of the group we met on Death Mountain was so—between these two attacks, the Yiga must have decided to beseech Ganon for more strength to be added to their own. I wouldn't be surprised if every person we meet has taken the Malice into themselves, to greater and lesser extents."

"Like Naydra."

"The dragon?"

"Yes. The dragon was infected with the Malice, too—their body was changed by it, made… different, and strange. It took a great deal of power to banish Ganon's influence on them."

Paya blinked rapidly several times, and the flash of realization and hope across the silver-haired girl's face twisted at Zelda's heart. She'd said too much again. Promised without knowing she was making promises.

"Zelda. Please forgive me for my presumption, but—"

"I don't know if I'll be able to do the same for the Yiga." That was true. She probably could, the principle was essentially the same, but could she _know_? "Naydra rejected the infection insofar as they were able; the Yiga have taken it into themselves by choice. Perhaps their willingness will make no difference, but it might strengthen Ganon's power over them just as the Malice strengthens their bodies. I can only promise that I will try."

The first indications that they were drawing near to the place of the Yiga's power were the statues. Set atop high shelves of rock or small plateaus, the statues had been shaped into scowling toads, staring up or down with their bulbous eyes—it was hard to tell which. Paya did not look at them in passing, seemingly uninterested in this subversion of the Sheikah aesthetic, but Zelda stared up at them as they walked. One, leaning further out than the rest, let her get a good look at the paper mask that hung down from its face and the face of about half its fellows.

"Paya, what is the meaning of the symbol of the Sheikah eye?"

Paya did not stop this time; she must have been anticipating this question, so she whispered as they walked.

"It is the eye of the goddess Hylia, whose grants knowledge, sorrowfully, to her followers."

"Sorrowfully?"

Paya nodded, her earrings swinging. "She is the goddess of all time—she can see the terrible purpose of that knowledge, and how it might be misused. She grants it out of necessity, knowing the pain that will follow." Paya flinched, as if just realizing what she had said and who she was talking to, but to her credit she didn't turn around and apologize. "O-o-or at least that's my understanding. Grandmother would likely say that I'm being too literal, or too r-r-romantic."

Above them stood the stone toads, half of whom wore an inverted Sheikah symbol as masks, the same inverted symbol that the Yiga themselves hid their faces behind. Zelda did not know why she was only curious now, looking at the statues in the quiet of the canyon, but she did not fight the urge to wonder.

 _Inverted—could that mean that they are claiming Hylia's knowledge by force? That they are rejecting the order that the Sheikah see as proper between the goddess and her followers? Or… maybe it is simply an inversion in truth, and for them Hylia does not grant knowledge, but obfuscates it. Wouldn't that match with how they've broken from the Sheikah and aligned themselves with Ganon? Why would they use a symbol derived from one that exalts Hylia, rather than making one to exalt Ganon, except that the point is the rejection of Hylia's order?_

She went round and round like that as they flitted between the shadows. Ruefully, she thought how much easier it would be if she could just ask one of the Yiga about it.

Paya and Zelda came to a hill; on this hill there was nowhere to hide, and at its crest they could see the entrance to the Yiga base, framed by burning torches.

"I feel," Zelda said, "as if we should be under attack."

"So do I," Paya said. "This _is_ a place where sentries should be. You can see the portcullis where they can see this spot from within the base, and there are rock formations all around us where guards might lie in wait. Please excuse me for a moment, and I will investigate."

"There is no need." Zelda reached within herself and grabbed hold of the power, reached out with her true senses as the pressure of the Malice grew so sharp it was physically painful. Her senses reached out, passing over the empty places where people had, once, been lying in wait. "There is no one there. There has not been anyone there for days, or perhaps weeks. It's difficult to tell; the Malice is so strong here that it is interfering with my perceptions, and I would need more of the power to block it out."

"The Malice? Here?"

"No. My apologies, that was bad wording. It is coming from in there." She pointed at the entrance to the base. It was only a door, and there were hundreds like it all over Hyrule, but still, something in it was dark and yawned with promises.

Paya followed the line of Zelda's finger, and Zelda saw her friend's face in profile. Even without the goddess's senses she would have been able to see the fear there, the trepidation, the dread. Something in that fear upset Zelda in a way she couldn't put a name to; Paya had faced down two Blights, had stood with her against the Yiga more than once, had resolved herself to walk with Zelda until the battle with the Calamity was actually joined. That Paya should feel fear in this moment, that she was wounded by fear, she, one of the courageous, even _she_ —

Zelda almost offered to go in alone. That would have been worse than an insult; it would have been a questioning of Paya's capabilities. It would have been to doubt her very faith.

Instead the princess said, "What should we do?" She called Paya to duty because duty was stronger than fear; she had known that about Paya for a long time. Zelda hated herself for exploiting Paya's faithfulness.

Paya snapped out of her reverie, as Zelda had expected, and then stared hard at the entrance. She only spoke after long seconds of consideration.

"I had thought that we would don our stealth suits, take only our best weapons, and infiltrate the base together," Paya said. "Slipping past the guards to the heart of the base wouldn't have been simple, but it would have been possible. We would find the Thunder Helm, neutralize the Yiga leader, and be away. But…" She shook her head. "I think that I conceived of the base as being essentially Sheikah. It's not. If the Malice is that strong, then it's not even really Yiga anymore. It is of Ganon, and stealth would only carry us so far against the Calamity."

Zelda waited.

"So… I think we should walk in there. And we should be prepared to fight, even if we don't know what shape that fight will take."

Zelda ran through many possible scenarios in her head: that the Yiga would ambush them as a body once they crossed the threshold, that some part of the base had been rigged to collapse, that the base was not full of _people_ but of _monsters_ , that there was another Blight waiting for them within, and many more besides this. Stealth could have counted for something against many possibilities, but the more likely ones, the ones that were rooted in the fact of Ganon's hate waiting for them, could only be answered by the blade and by the light of her power. She would have to use all of her strength, if that was necessary. Even if it did call down Ganon's wrath, she had to succeed here. She had to retrieve the Thunder Helm. She had to keep Paya safe.

She thought, _There are no choices to be made._

She said, "Will you help me put on my armor?"

* * *

In another time, another life, the hall of the Yiga was pristine, if dark; carefully constructed in its confusion; well-patrolled, though that patrol had its weaknesses. Even the first chamber that served as a foyer was rooted in a carefully considered pretension of normalcy and harmlessness, and only through the application of thought and fire could the true entrance into the complex be discovered. The sharpest of all the blades of the Yiga patrolled those halls, and their weapons were so fine that they could cut down even the courageous, even the heroic, at a stroke. That was the essence of the Yiga: a blade hidden beneath silk, waiting to be drawn.

That was another time. That was another life. In the here, the now, in the version of the world where the Princess fell in battle against the Calamity, the Malice was _everywhere_ , an infestation the likes of which Zelda and Paya had never seen before.

The Malice had been contained throughout Hyrule by the effort of the Koroks and their guardian, the Great Deku Tree; over the course of a century it had been removed from the ground above the buried Sheikah Towers, from the ruins left behind by battles lost in the fall of the kingdom. It remained in the Divine Beasts, though Zelda and Paya saw little of those infestations, and it remained at the heart of Hyrule Castle, and now, it was _here_.

Great golden eyes rose on stalks out of pools of liquid darkness, not just on the floor but the walls, the ceiling, the viscosity of the Malice so great that it was like a malleable solid. These golden eyes stared at Zelda and Paya, watching, measuring, and Zelda could not have said why but she felt something behind them, something more than the Blights, something more than her dreams of the Calamity, but that was a child's fear and she had no more time to pretend to childhood. The air was thick with the particles of the Malice, dancing in the air like snowflakes, tasteless, odorless, dissipating if they touched anything solid, like photons slowed down until they could be counted by the naked eye.

Zelda grabbed hold of more of the power. Not so much that she feared Ganon's attentions—assuming that the Calamity still sought her death as simply as it did before, and that the lack of reprisal after the Fire Blight's defeat had been a fluke—but it was enough to let her push away the pressure at her temples, to expand her senses until they filled the chamber around them. The Malice burned at her awareness, trying to grab hold of her in the same way that the Blight had done at the foot of Mount Lanayru, but she was stronger than she had been then and pushed it away from herself. Still, she left a berth around the Malice where she could, not interacting directly with it, satisfying herself with observing the surroundings.

"There is no one here," she said. "There is… a great deal of Malice. There are keese behind some of these tapestries. One tapestry hides a stairwell that will lead us deeper in."

Paya was quiet, staring at the golden eyes that were all turned toward Zelda. Zelda wanted desperately to touch her mind, to feel what she was thinking, but refrained.

"It feels as if the Calamity is watching us," Paya said. She was right, of course.

Zelda turned her power on the eyes in this room—seven of them, bound to an intelligence that was far away. They were, in some ways, more dangerous than the Malice itself, but they only observed; they did not attempt to eat away at her strength or supplant her will. Seven of them, on the floor and walls and ceiling. Zelda counted them as she focused her power into them.

Seven eyes exploded in flashes of golden radiance. Moments later, huge pools of the Malice also evaporated, as if cut off from some vital supply. In seconds, nearly half the Malice in the room had disappeared, though particles still hung in the air.

"It will have to make do with fewer eyes," Zelda said.

The drapes hiding the stairwell were heavy and would have taken a long time to cut through. Zelda and Paya burned them, standing back, watching as acrid smoke mixed with the particulate matter of the Malice, and then walked deeper into the heart of the Yiga hideout.

The Malice bubbled and roiled in their wake, undisturbed by the proximity of its ancient enemy.

* * *

Barta wasn't sure how long she'd been locked in this prison cell; couldn't have been more than a day, though. Maybe only a few hours? She was hungry, but not so hungry that it was turning into an emergency. Yet. Maybe it would soon.

By the Seven, captured by the Yiga. Sergeant Liana was going to be furious. And Captain Teake! She'd make Barta run laps around Gerudo Town for days on end. Weeks, maybe. Barta could already feel the toil on her lungs. And her knees!

"Assuming I ever get out of here," she muttered to the dark. Escape wasn't looking very likely.

She'd been staring at one of the weird frog statues when she'd been jumped from behind—she had never figured out how many Yiga there had been, but there'd been more than a handful. She liked to think she gave better than she got—take away from her whatever you wanted to, Barta knew she could fight even if she couldn't do anything else—but Yiga sword masters were nearly as strong as Gerudo, and it hadn't taken too long for them to knock her out. She'd come to here, in this little cell, weaponless but otherwise unhurt.

She'd thought about breaking out, or trying to, but she didn't have the tools necessary. The thick wooded bars of the cell were rotted through, but what had _made_ them rot was a thick, viscous substance that hissed and bubbled and smelled foul. Barta's mother had raised a fool, everyone said so, but even a fool could recognize deadly poison when she saw it. She wasn't touching that, no ma'am.

So, she hadn't touched it, or tried to escape. She'd waited. She'd listened. The Yiga were nowhere to be seen, and the hallway beyond her cell was dark and silent. It was almost like she was alone, but she couldn't have been alone, because she felt like something was watching her. Not someone; something. Something nasty. Something big. Something she wouldn't be able to run from. Waiting was about the only thing she could do safely. Sit in one place. Get hungrier, bit by bit. Wait for the Yiga to come back. Imagine how much trouble she was in, assuming she didn't just die.

She was crouched down, staring at the floor, thinking, when she heard the voice.

"Are you Barta?"

Barta fell backward out of shock, then jumped immediately to her feet and sank into a defensive stance. She wasn't going to let them take her without a fight—well, not again. Without _another_ fight.

 _Wait, she said my name._

"Uh, yeah! I'm Barta."

Two figures stepped out of the shadow and into the light of the torches, and Barta went through two shocks: first, they were not Yiga, which made a little sense since they knew her name. But they also weren't Gerudo, which made less sense. They were little Hylians, barely more than girls, one with silver hair and strange clothes and the other with golden hair flowing out from beneath armor that looked like it was carved from stone and glowed.

 _Who in the world?_

"We were told," said the girl with golden hair, "that you had come to scout out the Yiga fortress. Liana, Leena, and Kotta thought you might have been captured."

"They were right! Is it just you?" _Oh Seven they have no idea how much danger they're in_. "Listen, you two should get out of here if you can. This place is crawling with Yiga, and something's wrong with them. I fought them when they captured me, and they were stronger than they should have been. I managed to stick one with my spear, and the wound didn't even bleed!"

"We are aware," the girl with silver hair said.

"I'm Zelda, and my companion is Paya," the golden-haired girl said. "We're here for the Thunder Helm. And we're here to get you out."

Zelda placed her hands directly on the bars of Barta's cell. Barta almost reached out, was about to tell her to stop—and then light exploded from inside the dark stuff that had infested the wood, turning the interior of the cell so bright she had to shield her eyes. Barta heard the sound of water boiling, a hiss like a molduga's death rattle, and then silence. The light faded.

When Barta lowered her hand and opened her eyes, the dark stuff on the wood was gone, leaving behind rotted, _corroded_ bars that she probably could have broken with her hands.

"Please step back," Zelda said. She was holding an axe, only the blade was too big to be held by a Hylian and made of bright blue light. Barta did as instructed, and Zelda swung, and the blade of light smashed the bars of the cage to pieces before disappearing. The object Zelda slung onto her back was barely bigger than the hilt of a scimitar. Barta stared down at the still-smoking splinters on the floor while Zelda spoke again. "Head the way we came and take the stairs into the main chamber. You'll exit this building at the end of the canyon. There are sand seals near the entrance to the desert. Take one."

Barta found herself gaping.

"We have other ways to get back," the silver-haired girl, Paya, said. "Please hurry. There are no Yiga behind us, but things may become much more dangerous here very quickly. You should get as far away as possible."

The dark of the hallway behind them looked like the throat of a serpent. Barta looked behind them, then at the two girls, then at the broken ruins of the cell gate. _Well, who am I to question this?_

"All right. Good luck! And thank you."

They stepped aside for her. She raised a hand in farewell, and then she ran, sprinting through the dark.

Running. She was good at fighting, but she was also good at running.

 _I'm not going to stop until I get all the way back to Gerudo Town._

* * *

Fortifications that were essentially guardhouses, built around storerooms; secret alcoves filled with a hissing mass of what used to be fruit; Malice, everywhere, clinging to everything. That was the state of the Yiga Fortress. Those who had known it as it was before would not have recognized it then. It resembled less the place where the Yiga had honed their blades for a hundred centuries than it did the infested interior of Vah Rudania.

Golden eyes watched Zelda and Paya in passing; these Zelda destroyed with a flexing of the power. Mouths spoke nonsense sounds, threatening to vomit streams of coagulated evil from between their broad teeth; these Zelda left alone, since they seemed unaware of the world around them and did not react when she and Paya passed near them.

She _thought_ there were three major rooms after the one where they'd freed Barta, but she couldn't be sure. The walls were eaten away in places, turning the hideout into something resembling a single enormous chamber. They picked through it slowly, careful not to touch the pools of Malice that would grow, incrementally, if they waited long enough to see the change. The particles in the air were thicker here, glowed brightly enough to see by even in the absence of torches.

They came to a door, separated from the adjoining chamber by hanging beads that were arranged to convey the inverted eye of the Yiga. Pushing this aside, Paya and Zelda entered what must have been the personal room of the master of the Yiga, Kohga.

The miasma hit them like a physical blow and Paya doubled over, gagging—not because it was foul but because it was _corrosive_ , Zelda could feel it scalding the flesh of her throat. She grabbed hold of the power and hurled it outwards, filling the air around them, and there was a sound like the chiming of a bell at the dawn of the world. She grabbed hold of Paya's hand, focused the power into her, too, channeled Mipha's magic to heal the scorching of their airways. Paya looked up at her, rose again, and the two of them stood at the middle of the storm of light.

The Malice roared and hissed and evaporated like leaves caught in a bonfire, and Zelda felt something behind it pulling back, not recoiling but focusing—and then nothing, and gone. The amount of the power she was using was enormous, dangerous, but if she was right then Ganon should not feel it from Hyrule Castle.

Finally, the Malice burned away, and she released the power. The chiming stopped, and the room was quiet, and in the dark they stood among the ruins of what had been a place of meditation and learning.

Paya lit a torch, setting it in a sconce on the wall. Zelda removed her pack, and began taking inventory of her weaponry, deciding what would be best used in the battle to come.

"I assumed," Paya said, "that the Thunder Helm would be here, in Kohga's room."

"The wall at the rear of the room is fake," Zelda said, checking the emitter on her ancient short sword. "It's also ferrous, so it can be opened with the Magnesis rune. If I had to guess, the Yiga have been working to copy the runes, and have had success with at least that one." She was muttering, now, but didn't care. "We have to be prepared for that; if the Yiga have that kind of technology available to them then they might have more, and it's not clear what degree of efficacy they can achieve with it. Probably not up to the level of performance of the Sheikah Slate itself, but—"

Paya's hand rested on her shoulder.

Zelda looked up. Paya was looking down at her with an expression of such perfect seriousness, one that went beyond the bounds of concern, that she did not know how to interpret it at first.

"The leader of the Yiga isn't their greatest warrior," Paya said. "Throughout the clan's history, that's never been the head's primary role. This Kohga is probably well-trained and clever, but fundamentally he is not an assassin; he is a priest."

Zelda let that word, _priest_ , roll around in her mind. "Of Ganon, you mean."

"Yes. Everything that we've seen here, this… this _horror_ , all the Malice, everything, is because of the Yiga Master's communion with Ganon. This is new to the Yiga, just as it's new to us. There's no telling what waits for you past that door, but—"

"For _me_."

Paya nodded. Tears stood in her eyes, glinting in the light of the torches.

"F-f-forgive me. This is very," she swallowed audibly, " _very_ difficult for me to say. But I can't follow you where you are going now. I can't contribute meaningfully to the battle against whatever Kohga has become. I can only wait for you here. I can only pray for your success."

Zelda got to her feet, looked at the false wall, looked at Paya. Paya, who had followed her here to this place, who was willing to die for her. The princess could not imagine the force of will it must have taken for Paya to admit that she could not participate in the fight to come, the pain she must feel in having to express that. Zelda knew that Paya understood this was not a betrayal; it was another form of her duty.

The princess in ancient armor put on her back the ancient shield, the ancient short sword, and the ancient spear. She held out the Lightscale Trident and the Boulder Breaker to Paya; Paya hesitated and then took them.

"I will retrieve the Thunder Helm," Zelda said, "and then I will return. We will leave this place together. Wait for me here."

Paya nodded, staring at the floor.

Zelda took the Sheikah Slate from her hip, activated Magnesis, and rotated the back wall. She stepped out into a clearing under the harsh light of the sun. The wall swung shut behind her.

* * *

Paya exhaled a silent prayer of thanks to Hylia; Zelda had not reached out to her and shared in her thoughts for the entire trek through the fortress. The princess had agreed so readily to her charge's assertion that she did not have time to second-guess it; she never considered the possibility that Paya might have been lying to her.

The door swung shut, separating Paya and Zelda with a barrier so thick that Zelda would not be able to hear through it. As was necessary.

Paya knelt on the ground. Her Shield of the Mind's Eye glowed with the blessing of the goddess, Hylia; her eight-fold blade hummed with the promise of holy work, and in her grip it was surety, and safety, and duty all at once.

The Sheikah girl tightened the cuffs of her sleeves, let down her hair, and then retied it in a much tighter bun. She set her hat aside and double-checked the fastenings of her earrings. She closed her fists, opened them, breathed, felt the beating of her heart and the pumping of her blood. She focused on her hearing, heard the bubbling of the Malice in the adjoining chambers… and, beneath that bubbling, she heard the slow and steady heartbeats of the men and women hiding in its shadow.

 _I am ready. Hylia, protect me, just long enough to protect her_.

"I know you are there," she said aloud, trying to project, knowing her voice not have to carry very far. "You might as well come out now."

She heard as the Yiga began to rise out of the Malice, which had cloaked them from Zelda's passive awareness as the goddess incarnate had crept by. She heard deep, steady breaths taken in the open, blades sliding against wood and leather as weapons were bared, the impossibly soft tread of the assassins converging toward this room.

There was only one doorway into this room and one doorway behind her. This chamber was the space that the Yiga would need to pass through to assist their Master in ambush; this chamber was the space where they would transition from potential threat to active one.

They meant to harm Zelda. They had meant to kidnap Paya to that purpose, to use her in their aims, and in this they had failed. They had never considered that they would be found out; they had never considered that the goddess incarnate might be so far above them.

They had never considered that Paya would be the wall they could not scale.

She got to her feet. Placed her sword and shield on her back. Drew out the cruel, cutting-edged bow that had belonged to the lynel on Ploymus. She nocked a bomb arrow, which became three.

The Yiga drew near. She could hear them, as she raised the enormous bow to her shoulder and pulled the string taut, aiming for the gap in the doorway where the assassins would reveal themselves.

They would not pass her. They would not reach Zelda. They would not.

* * *

Barta ran, and ran, and ran. She left the Yiga hideout behind and did not stop running, sprinting as if every step might be interrupted by shouts and blades and arrows and she had to outrun not just the Yiga but the idea of them.

She ran the length of the canyon, passing from light to shadow to light without noticing the cliffs around her. Any observers would have been hard-pressed to keep track of her, so swift was her retreat.

Ahead of her she heard the barking of sand seals, and her adrenaline picked up rather than abating.

 _There they are! I'm almost out of here!_

Then:

 _Wait, that's more than two or three_.

She rounded a corner, colliding with three women moving in formation. They braced out of reflex; Barta did not, and was sent sprawling, knocked backward. She scrambled to her feet, then saw the women who had arrived in the Yiga's canyon.

"Oh."

* * *

There was no Malice in the vast clearing behind the Yiga hideout; there was only sand, and stone, and a massive pit, and a man standing on its edge, gazing down into it.

The light of the sun shone down on Zelda as she stepped into the clearing. The man must have heard her approach, because he turned to look at her.

Kohga was not a tall man, but he was lean, well-muscled. It was impossible to see his expression behind his mask, but something in his posture suggested ease and impatience as he faced Zelda. Her first impression of him was how ordinary-looking he was, how anticlimactic he seemed when measured against Paya's fear and Zelda's own estimations of him. He was just a man.

"Oh, I'm more than that," Kohga said, and when Zelda flinched he laughed, long and loud. "What? Did you think you were the only one who can reach out and touch the world around you? Did you imagine you were the only one walking the earth who was blessed? _God-touched_?"

"I am here for the Thunder Helm," Zelda said. "Surrender it to me. There does not need to be violence." She understood, as she offered this, that it was pointless. She had to make the offer anyway.

"Oh, girl, you are _wrong_."

Behind her, behind the door, there was a rumble—or, no, more of a thud.

" _Eyes on me!_ " Kohga shrieked, and Zelda instinctively grabbed hold of the power.

A wave of invisible force crashed into her, bone-crushing, and if she hadn't been bolstered by Hylia's strength then it would have pulverized her. She pushed back against it, taking more and more of the power into herself, and did not let up until it was neutralized.

Kohga laughed again.

"Wonderful! This is what I've been waiting for, you know? I've been waiting for _you_ , servant of the Liar Goddess, incarnation of abandonment! I've been wanting to speak with you, and through you, Hylia!"

Zelda drew the power hard against herself, fortifying her body, preparing herself defensively. She had no sense of Kohga's strength—he might be as strong as a Hinox or he might have been worse than a Blight—but she had to be prepared.

Kohga reached out with one hand, as if offering it to her grip, and Malice boiled from inside of him, smoke and ichor billowing out from behind his mask, from tears in his uniform. His torso shifted and bulged as something moved inside of it, hidden beneath the red fabric.

"Let me thank you, Zelda, and by _way_ of thanks allow me to show you the better way we've cultivated! Let me show you our new god!"

Ganon's power erupted all around Kohga, and the Yiga Master charged across the clearing.

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ Part of the journey is coming to an end; we are nearing a climax.

Are you ready?


	34. Diary and Shadow

_I can't describe the feeling of seeing the Guardian erupt behind her. Each of the ancient machines contains the energy necessary to bring down a village, and even though all of that energy was building up beneath her, ready to explode, Zelda didn't seem concerned at all. In the moment I hadn't been able to tell but looking back I can recall it more clearly: she was frustrated that she had broken it. So much danger to herself, and she remained singularly focused on the path she'd set down for herself._

 _Though I'm ashamed to admit it, I froze, looking up at her. Something in her posture—in her expression?—rooted me to the spot. I should have grabbed hold of her and gotten us both away from that place, but instead it was_ she _who moved to protect_ me _. The Princess of Hyrule used her body to shield mine, tackling me to the ground, blocking my face with her shoulder. I used my shield to protect the back of her head, but the rain of debris still fell. I could hear it falling on her back, feel the miniscule impacts through her bo—_

 _Her hair was in my face. I remember that with particular clarity: it was like a golden veil that had entrapped the light of the Sun. The sme—_

 _I have to stop doing this! I have to write this down!_

 _She got to her feet and apologized to me, over and over, and I don't remember what I said but I don't think it could have measured up to the moment. Maybe I didn't say anything! She was so radiant in the light of the day, so sure, so_ strong _when she talked about the future. I understood why our people serve her. I understand now, rather. I'll never forget._

 _She offered her hand and pulled me to my feet. And I will write this part!_

 _For days I've tried harder and harder to look my lady directly in her eyes, but I'm arrested by the green-blue and can't keep up eye contact. My color rises every time she addresses me. I want… I want distance between us. To respect her for the enormity of who she is and what she represents. But there's something else, too. I feel weak around her, as if all the blood is rushing to my head. My heart won't stop pounding. She's seen me fight. There are Yiga hiding in the shadows, waiting for us, but nothing they can do make me so nervous as she does._

 _When she grabbed my hand, I think—_

 _I think I understood, then. Looking up at her, feeling her strength as she pulled me to my feet, the smile on her face, the light caught in her hair. It wasn't just respect. It wasn't just fear. It wasn't just piety._

 _I can't write down what it was. What it is._

 _If I write it down, then it will be true._

Riju shoved the diary underneath one of her pillows, buried her face in another, and screamed at the top of her lungs. She kicked against her mattress with her heels, beating out a staccato rhythm as the sand seal plushes looked on in quiet non-judgment.

She couldn't take it. She couldn't take it! She was going to lose her mind! She had to fight the urge to run in circles around her bed, shrieking for the entire city to hear, or to climb up the water tower and jump up and down and shout at the sky. It was so much! She had to stop.

 _Breathe,_ she told herself, and took a long, patient breath through her nose. She counted out the seconds it took to inhale, to fill herself completely with air until her lungs could hold no more. Riju held that breath for long moments, centering herself.

Then she held the pillow over her face and screamed again.

"Is it _that_ good?" Buliara's voice cut through her reverie like a bomb arrow going off.

Riju went very still. Then, slowly and deliberately, she removed the pillow from her face and sat up in bed. Buliara stood in the doorway to Riju's bedroom, resplendent in the uniform of her station, wide awake even at this absurdly early hour.

"Good morning, Buliara."

Buliara said nothing. She gave no sign of what she was thinking.

"Please excuse me. I was having a nightmare."

"A… nightmare."

"Yes. A frightening one, though the details are growing foggier. You've done me a great kindness by waking me from it."

The two of them stared at each other. Sounds of market stalls being set up drifted from the city square.

Riju sighed. "All right, yes, it's that good."

Buliara shook her head, scowling. "You do a disservice to yourself and to that girl's confidence by reading her diary, Riju." The use of her name made Riju relax, marginally: if Buliara used "Chief Riju" in private then it was as a stand-in for scolding her.

"Yes, but—"

"It is beneath the dignity of the Chief of the Gerudo." Ah, yes, there it was, the severity she'd been expecting. "Never mind that such displays will frighten the guards—you should not be doing such a thing."

In answer, Riju got up, retrieved the diary from underneath her pillow, flipped to the page she had just finished reading, and approached Buliara. She held it out with both hands. Buliara didn't look at the book; she just looked at Riju, her disapproval more and more evident with every passing second.

"Read this page. Just one page." She gestured with the book.

Buliara finally looked at the diary, though her eyes darted back to Riju almost immediately. Riju could see the scales tilting back and forth in her attendant's head: Buliara genuinely _did_ think this was beneath Riju's dignity, but pushing the point ran the risk of the request turning into an order. Buliara had been Riju's caretaker for some time, now, and any conflict where they might actually butt heads threatened to undermine their entire relationship.

Buliara sighed through her nose, and with her right hand took the book from Riju. With her left she reached into a pocket on her belt and drew forth a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, which she unfolded and set on her nose. With one last disapproving look, the greatest warrior in Gerudo Town turned the fullness of her attention to the diary of the Sheikah girl.

Riju watched Buliara's face very, _very_ carefully. It took the older woman a few moments to anchor herself—the page started mid-sentence—and then contextualize what was being said. Then she read. And she read. And she read.

By the end of the page Buliara's mouth had formed a small, scandalized circle, as if she was trying to whistle by inhaling. Her eyebrows had risen to her hairline.

" _See?_ " She had to fight the urge to snatch the book out of Buliara's hands. "That's _some_ encoding, isn't it."

Instead of answering, Buliara closed the book, put away her spectacles, and handed the diary back to Riju. Only once Riju had taken the book firmly back in hand did her guardian respond:

"This _cannot_ interfere with your duties."

"It won't! I'll only read it _between_ audiences."

Another scowl. "After your scheduled meetings."

"Of course! Strictly an afternoon indulgence. Except… Patricia isn't an especially demanding performer, is she?"

This time Buliara's sigh was much more open. "No, I suppose she isn't. Though she is probably hungry. You had best hurry, before you fall behind schedule."

Riju didn't need to be told twice. She wrapped the diary in a plain leather cover, then bolted from the room and down the stairs, not caring how much her haste might startle the guards. Oh, Patricia's yard would make for _perfect_ reading…

* * *

The Calamity brought down its axe on the spot where Link had been half a heartbeat before. The flooring had long since been reduced to powder; now the earth beneath it split, a shudder running throughout the entire chamber from the impact of Ganon's weapon.

Ganon's eyes traced Link as he dodged. Link saw that it seemed better able to follow him than it had been before—however many hours or days they'd been fighting. He shifted his grip on the Master Sword, and the Calamity's burning eyes focused on his fingers. It had overextended. It had enough time to consider that, as he swung the Master Sword directly toward its cheek.

Its forearm was in the way. The Master Sword bit into Ganon's flesh, roared with a sound like thunder, and burned away at the monster's body. The follow-through on the stroke tore an enormous gash out of the limb, leaving the almost-bone exposed to the open air, but the important thing was that he had _meant_ to cleave Ganon's skull in half. It had blocked him. It was staring at him even now, locking eyes with his.

 _It's getting faster_ , he thought.

Ganon pulled back and reared to its full height, and Link struck again, the tip of the Master Sword shearing through the skin above its kneecap. Not through the joint itself.

 _It's getting_ much _faster._

Malice and purple fire filled the spaces where Link had torn Ganon's flesh, and its wounds were fully closed as it raised its arms into the air. Its diaphragm was completely exposed, the long line of its stomach thrust out, waiting to be cut. Whatever Ganon was doing, it had left itself defenseless.

 _This is a trap_.

Link feinted, taking a half-step as if to rush in and gut his opponent.

Two axes of burning purple light exploded from Ganon's hands and it brought the left smashing down into the spot where Link _would_ have been standing if he'd actually charged. Then the left was gone, and Link leaped to the side and the right-hand axe obliterated where he'd been standing a moment before.

A rain of blows followed, Ganon swinging axes that would have cloven Guardians in half with the speed of a drummer. Link answered with the Master Sword, throwing the whole of his body into deflecting blows or else turning them aside. He felt the rhythm of Ganon's movements, adjusted his own to match. Through the pain, past the stiffness of his limbs, beyond his exhaustion, his body did answer to the rhythm, and he danced between and around Ganon's blades. He did not have to think. The Master Sword was in his hand, and it flashed, turning aside Ganon's swords or biting at flesh. This rhythm had carried him through uncounted exchanges, would carry him through until help came.

Except.

Except that he swung, and Ganon's hand was not there.

Except that he moved to parry, and instead he had to redirect a blow so that it crashed into the floor.

Except that the rhythm was picking up, faster and faster, and with every swing Ganon grew surer.

Link lunged, both hands on the hilt of the Master Sword. He thrust for Ganon's stomach.

An axe flashed, and the blade of the Master Sword skidded off of light and steel and Malice. The force of the blow sent him careening, and he had to orient himself in the air in order to land safely. He sailed, and watched Ganon, and Ganon watched him, and in the depths of the maelstrom that passed for its face it was smiling. Link landed on his feet, the Master Sword held out in front of him.

"It has taken a very long time," Ganon whispered, and the walls shook.

They began to circle one another, drawing slowly closer.

"It has taken so very, _very_ long, but I have the measure of you."

The earth shook beneath its hooves, and it held one of its axes with the point aimed at Link, warding him off with a weapon several times his size. He did not answer. His eyes were not on his opponent; they were on its arms.

"You fight like no one I have ever met, mortal or otherwise. Now… now, finally, it doesn't matter."

Ganon and Link both stopped walking; both sank into offensive stances, Ganon leading with both axes, Link crouching with the Master Sword held back, ready to thrust.

"I have the measure of you. Your advantage is gone."

A field of fire winked into life behind Ganon, black and purple and red tongues licking at each other, at the air, at the ceiling. Shadows were flowing out of the Calamity's body, Malice seeping from its every pore before flowing back into and joining the fires.

Link did not move. He did not even look. He would not be distracted.

Then the field of fire opened its eyes, and there were two of the Calamity in the room.

Now Link looked.

He watched as the field of fire twisted itself into the shape of a beast, standing on two tree-like legs ending in hooves (how the Calamity loved to have hooves), its massive shoulders twisting down into equally massive arms with hands that could have held a Hylian between their fingers and crushed them like fruit. Its head was crowned with great, twisting horns. It seemed to have a face, or at least _fangs_ , but shadows clung to it, obscuring the details.

With two sets of eyes the Calamity regarded the Hero. Still he did not move.

 _It has split its strength. Why would it do that? Does it think that it can gain an advantage by attacking from two directions?_

It never occurred to him that Ganon had done anything except split its strength; he never conceived of the possibility that there was no limit to the Calamity's power.

The second body, unarmed, stepped away from the first. Turned to face the wall. Crossed its arms over its chest, as if watching something. Something to the southwest.

The first body lunged, swinging one axe in a broad, horizontal arc.

Link leaped over the blow, the Master Sword singing in his hand, and slashed open the attacking hand. Malice exploded from the wound as flesh tried to seal itself, and Link ran up the length of the arm, cutting again, and again, and again. The Calamity bellowed in pain, loosing its grip on its second axe, swinging for Link with its fist. He met the fist with the point of the Master Sword.

The Blade of Evil's Bane sank deep between the second and third knuckles of the Calamity's hand. There was a moment of quiet.

The beast's hand exploded, spraying Malice and fire in every direction. The Calamity howled, pulling back, and Link turned toward the second body.

The second beast still stared at nothing, seemingly unfazed by the pain of its other half.

 _What is it waiting for? Will it try to escape?_

Link ducked, and the axe passed through the air over him, the heat of its blade scorching the wind in its passing. He turned and attacked again, was met by the second axe, deflected it, dodged around a third blow, lashed out at the offending arms. Stole another look at the second body, which still did not move.

 _It doesn't matter. If Ganon tries to escape, I'll stop it. If it attacks, I'll fight them both. But until it acts, I can use this opportunity—I only have to fight it to a standstill. Conserve my strength. Be patient._

He fell into the rhythm. The rhythm sped up, and so did he.

 _She will be here soon._

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE**_ _:_ This is a short interlude chapter to make sure I have something up in a reasonable time period.

Allllllllllso this is here because I forgot at least one element of setup for a future sequence, and this chapter will make that transition smoother.

Sorry to stretch out the cliffhanger for longer. The next chapter is already partially written and I hope to have it up soon.


	35. Blessings and Curses

Paya had been expecting an army to round the corner and pour through the doorway. The bomb arrows hissed and her shoulders screamed as she kept up the tension of the lynel bow. The footsteps had stopped.

 _No. Not all of them_.

She counted the steps. The echo outside made it hard to measure the distance, but it was only one set of feet, now. Light steps but meant to be heard. Judging by the sound of the footfall the person had been injured, recovered, and trained to cover prior weaknesses. They were armed, though not heavily. Paya held perfectly still, waiting, the lynel bow creaking in her hands.

A Yiga woman rounded the corner. Her hands were empty, the sickle blade of her order hanging at her waist.

"Put that down," she said, and Paya flinched. It was the woman she and Zelda had met outside of Kakariko—the first person to try to kill the princess. Meeting her again was a bad omen.

 _I warned Zelda about this_.

Instead of responding, Paya tightened her grip, reaffirmed her aim to the floor directly in front of the Yiga. No dodging or acrobatics would save her from three eruptions right under her feet.

The Yiga sighed. "What do you think you're going to accomplish?"

"You will not get past me," Paya said. Her voice was very level, for how much she was straining.

"Ah-ha." The Yiga crossed her arms. Her voice betrayed that she was scowling behind her mask. "We are not trying to get past you. If we _were_ , you would be dead already. Do you think this doorway is the only entrance to this room?"

"Yes." Paya could hear the lie in the implication: if there _was_ another way in or out of this room, then no one but Kohga knew of it.

"Fine, believe that if you want. Still, we are not trying to interfere in Kohga's battle with your charge. We learned our lesson on Death Mountain: only someone blessed by Ganon stands a chance against her. Isn't that so?" An irritated scoff. " _Would you put that down?_ This trap isn't for her. It's for you."

Paya blinked, and her aim wavered. "What?"

"Since we can't fight the incarnation of Hylia directly, you're the best means by which to strike a blow against her." Her tone was informal. Conversational, even.

"Then why talk to me? Why not just swarm me?"

"We thought about it. You'd kill a number of us, but by force of numbers and with Ganon's strength we could bring you down. We decided, however, that that's not necessary. Will you come with me, into the adjoining chamber? I can explain there."

It was Paya's first instinct to let loose the bomb arrows. If nothing else, she could right the wrong of this woman being alive and save Zelda from the consequences of misplaced kindness. It might take more than one volley, but the other woman _would_ die. Then the rest of the Yiga would come, no matter what their plan was. She would fight here. She would die for her princess, perfectly fulfilling her duties.

 _What would it accomplish?_

The thought welled up from inside of her, but it was not her voice. It was Zelda's, as if the blessing that beat inside of Paya like a second heart was speaking to her.

She lowered the bow. Eased the tension on the string. Put away the bomb arrows. Stowed the weapon on her back.

The Yiga nodded and led her out of the room, out into the adjoining hall. The other Yiga were there—she could hear the pounding of their hearts, the brushing of cloth against cloth—but the darkness clung to them, making them invisible. There had been a guard tower in its center, once, but that was gone now, leaving a wide space that was empty, even of Malice. The Yiga stepped into that space, then turned to face Paya. Paya could feel the edges of that space, the square that the tower had once occupied.

This was an arena.

"Light the torches," the Yiga woman said.

Up to that point, the sickly light of the Malice had been the room's only illumination. Paya heard flint struck to steel in a dozen places, and a dozen torches flared to life, dispelling the darkness and letting Paya see her surroundings in detail for the first time.

Yiga stood on every side of the square of cleared flooring, assassins and blademasters in staggered ranks. Malice flowed off of them, from beneath their masks and inside of their gloves, forming a miasma that would make Paya dizzy if she let it. She could not guess at how many there were—she had been trained to judge how many people she might have to fight, but not in numbers like this. It was more like a troop deployment. She would have believed it if she'd been told that every Yiga warrior alive was standing in that room.

Because she was herself, she looked for routes of egress—there was no one guarding the rafters, and the hallway toward the entrance of the fortress was similarly unprotected—but this scan was only reflexive. There were dozens upon dozens of warriors between her and the exit. There would be no escape.

"So," she said, turning toward the woman who had brought her to this place, "what do you want?"

The woman bowed, and before she spoke Paya realized the two of them were now part of a ritual, and the other woman was performing. "Servant of Hylia, the liar goddess, we seek your life. You, who have the blessing of Hylia, must be brought low by us, the acolytes of Ganon. Our grand leader, Kohga, is already engaged in combat with your charge, and in his victory, we will be exalted in the golden eyes of the dark lord. However, for our victory to be complete, a servant of Kohga must be proven superior to a servant of Hylia."

Paya blinked. How much of that was truth and how much of it was lies? She couldn't parse the parts that were more or less believable. If nothing else, it was consistent. That was the only thing she could cling to. "What do you propose?"

"Our proposal is simple: you and I will engage in single combat. If you should emerge victorious, you will be allowed to walk from this place. If the impossible should happen and Zelda triumphs over Kohga, then we could hardly stop her from joining you."

 _I am best served by delaying until Zelda returns._ She banished the thought from her mind. They would recognize it if she began to stall for time.

Paya said, "And if I lose?"

The other woman shrugged. There was a world of potential behind that shrug, and the Malice in the room grew thicker and more cloying.

"If you _refuse_ , we will kill you where you stand. You will kill more than one of us, we are sure, but you will die, and we will wait while Kohga kills Zelda. So. Do you accept, cousin?"

Paya looked around the room again. Blank non-faces stared at her, wearing a mockery of her people's symbol. Malice hung in the air. The torches were bright, but not so bright that this place lost its essential darkness. It was a truly miserable circumstance she had gotten herself into.

"I accept."

The other woman crossed the distance of the arena in one leap, leading with a knee aiming for Paya's sternum. Paya turned the blow aside by dipping with her shoulder, drew her sword, and jammed it into the woman's side, angling up and into the lung. With her left hand she struck the woman's windpipe, then her mask over the eyes—

Then a fist slammed into the side of her head and the world exploded into stars. Something unbelievably heavy hit her in the ribs, and through the great fairy's protection she felt two breaking. She tore her sword free, smashed the hilt into her opponent's temple, and kicked hard for the diaphragm. She felt, rather than saw, the blow land, and pushed so hard that her opponent was sent stumbling back.

Paya willed her vision to clear, biting down on her tongue for a bright lance of brilliant pain, and the clouds in her eyes dissipated. She looked at the other woman.

The Yiga was standing still and sure. Malice oozed from the new hole in her diaphragm—only it wasn't oozing, because the hole was gone. The last visible mark of the wound left by Paya's blessed sword closed as she watched—and, just as visibly, the Yiga's crushed throat seemed to adjust itself back into its proper shape.

The Yiga leaped again, her sickle blade in her hands. Paya caught the blow on her shield. She brought her arm up to block a punch—which smashed through her guard and rocked her head on her shoulders, sending her sprawling. Paya rolled. The blade cut the floor where she'd been moments ago, and she kept rolling. She kicked off the ground, felt the enemy's weapon tearing at her uniform, lashed out with her own sword. There was a spray of Malice and blood and then the woman was in her face again.

* * *

Kohga brought down the sickle blade and the Ancient Spear burst to life in Zelda's hands.

The burning triple head of light danced in the air in front of Kohga, tracing patterns meant to deceive the eye, and he staggered backward, scrambling as Zelda advanced in short, measured steps. She couldn't fight like Mipha, but her body remembered some small fraction of how to use a spear. That was enough.

 _Resonance with the Ancient Armor has increased in energy output of my weapons by 80%, as estimated. Even the Lightscale Trident wouldn't be more effective right now_.

Zelda allowed herself a tight smile.

"You're not supposed to know how to fight!" Kohga's scream was offended as he retreated, trying to bat away Zelda's weapon and earning a scorched hand for his effort. "Ow!"

Zelda stepped in, using the same motion as had been orthodox in the Zora military for centuries, and thrust directly for Kohga's chest. The Yiga Master leaped backward. The spear pierced only empty air. Kohga landed some ten paces away, panting. Zelda could feel his glare from behind the mask.

 _He's definitely a better fighter than a bokoblin, but he's nothing like the Yiga that we've met on the road. Paya was right. I can do this! If he was relying on beating me with his martial skills, then he's lost!_

"Give me the Thunder Helm," she said again. "You can't beat me, Kohga."

Kohga made a sign with his hands, and lines of raw power unfolded from inside of his body. There was a sound that Zelda found disarming in its familiarity, electrical resistance made manifest. The Yiga Master flexed the muscles of his shoulders.

Five spiked steel orbs burst from beneath the ground and hung suspended eight feet in the air. Each was broader than Zelda was tall. Each was attached to Kohga by a line of energy very much like Magnesis.

 _Oh._

Zelda collapsed the Ancient Spear and grabbed the Sheikah Slate from her belt.

"HA!" Kohga's exhalation accompanied a thrusting forward of his hands.

Zelda sank down into the goddess awareness, soaking herself in the power as the steel orbs screamed across the canyon. She flicked the Slate to the Magnesis rune, fired, and _heaved_.

Steel balls smashed into the walls of the canyon as Kohga hurled them and Zelda deflected them; he could control more at once, but she was stronger, and faster, achieving with flicks of her wrist and her mind what he could only gain by a labor of his entire body. Kohga ripped the projectiles from their resting places and hurled them again, and Zelda adjusted them in flight, and Kohga grabbed hold of them even as they shifted in directions—and in moments the two of them stood in the middle of a maelstrom as whirling metal death sailed past each of them at speeds too fast for the unaided eye to track. Golden light bathed the area around Zelda as her senses were craned wide open, and Malice boiled inside of and around Kohga as his position shifted. Zelda barely moved; Kohga was nearly dancing, reaching out with hands crooked into claws, pulling and thrusting at invisible lines of power.

Zelda stopped thinking in words. She entered the space where engineers of her ilk sometimes find themselves, having left behind the language of the spoken word and thinking in the realm of numbers, of vectors, of conflicting forces that inform momentum and can predict the future. The goddess's power drove these thoughts, giving her more space than the limits of her physical brain would have allowed.

Vectors aligned with one another. A line of power shifted as Kohga moved his right shoulder forward. Mathematical surety gave rise to one clear thought:

 _The next attack will be overhead._

Kohga threw his hand forward. The fourth orb broke out of its orbit and made a wide swing overhead, directly at Zelda.

She caught it with Magnesis, flung it to the left.

Kohga hissed, reached out for the deflected weapon, and Zelda adjusted the arc of the third ball by four degrees.

Kohga was reaching out with his hand when that ball smashed him into the ground, shaking the canyon with its impact.

Zelda's adjustments were now more concrete and more direct.

The second impact, steel-on-steel-on-flesh-on-stone, was much louder than the first. Then the other three steel orbs smashed into Kohga, from different angles and different directions. The ground beneath the growing piles of spiked death began to crack. Malice flowed from beneath the pile of metal, the clearest visible sign that Kohga was still alive.

Zelda let go of the calculations and thought, _Will that be enough?_

In answer, Kohga screamed, and the weapons he had summoned shattered as if they were made of glass. A maelstrom of Malice and lightning carried the shards into the air, spitting them toward the sky. Instead of falling, they _burned_ in the Malice, twisting in the air and dissipating until nothing was left.

The sound of a ringing bell filled the canyon, a harmonic voice that began to fold the roar of the Malice into itself as Zelda let the power into the air.

 _It doesn't matter how strong he is. It doesn't matter how much of Ganon's strength he can call upon. I've fought the Blights of Ganon. I hold_ all _of Hylia's power. I can stop him._ She swallowed.

The Malice around Kohga began to burn as he pulled it in toward himself. That light became denser, _hotter_ , as it was compressed into a smaller and smaller point. The sound it made was high-pitched, like the charging of a capacitor.

 _Another emulation of the ancient technology. How far have the Yiga come?_

"Kohga, stop this! That won't work on me!"

Kohga held the ball of molten light, darker than the Malice and more blinding than the Sun, in his hands. He was laughing.

"We'll see."

Zelda began walking toward Kohga. Distance would not make a difference, here.

The Yiga Master thrust his hands forward, and the destructive stream of plasma that split the air made a sound like twenty Guardians firing simultaneously. The light of day seemed darker; even the light of Hylia seemed darker. The projectile moved so quickly that it was no wonder some had mistaken it for a ray of light.

The beam was a foot away from Zelda's chest when Daruk's Protection flared. There was a flash of crystalline red, a rushing of air as the impact force of the projectile was rebounded, and a renewed howl as the air was burned by the plasma a second time on its return trip.

When the beam struck Kohga in the chest it did not explode into fire, as Guardian blasts did; all the energy it released was concussive, and much more focused. The rock wall twenty feet behind the Yiga Master crumbled. He made a low, difficult-to-hear sound.

All at once his body seemed to catch up with the force, and he went hurtling backward. The impact his body made on the ruined wall of the canyon was small, kicking up barely any dust.

 _I warned him,_ she thought, and kept walking forward. She didn't know how much more she could do: a few more exchanges like that and she ran the very real risk of killing him.

The possibility unfolded inside of her, and she shoved it away. _No. No, if it happens, then it happens, but I do not need to think of it now. I refuse to. I refuse._

Despite what pains he must have been experiencing, despite the wounds that Zelda could sense in his body and the redoubled agonies of the healing conferred by the Malice, despite what his rational mind should have demanded of him, Kohga rose. He staggered away from the wall on unsteady feet, arms held out to his sides as if to catch himself if he fell. He walked far enough to leave behind the debris, to plant his feet firmly on the earth. He pulled himself into a standing position. From behind his mask he stared.

Zelda stopped twenty paces away from him. The wind had fallen still. The power of the goddess continued flowing from her, and the Malice flowed from Kohga, but the world seemed to be waiting for them to do something. Holding its breath.

"Please," she said. " _Please_. No more of this."

Kohga stared.

Then he turned his head to the left, very slowly. To the right, very slowly. Left again. Right again.

 _Is he looking for someone?_

"I was looking for your _audience_ ," Kohga said. "Since it seems that you want to tell _jokes_." He was not being funny; he was shaking, she saw, and it was not the influence of the Malice that was pumping through his veins. That shaking had reached his voice, as if he was barely holding together. "All this time. All this time and you have the gall to _pity_ me. To want to have _mercy_ on me."

Zelda said nothing. Thought nothing. Only watched, listened.

"The blood of the goddess, her authority manifested, betrays her truest servants and expects nothing to happen." His voice was a whisper, one that promised that if he shouted then the world would break. "Nothing. Ten thousand years you, _all of you_ in the royal family, had the gall to wonder why we turned to Ganon. Why we found new strength in the arms of a more faithful god."

 _Enough._

"Ganon will destroy you." Her voice was Hylia's voice, and it echoed off of everything. "You have consigned yourselves to oblivion."

" _You_ consigned us to oblivion when you betrayed us. When she betrayed us through you. We are not fools. We know there is no place for us in Ganon's world." He held out his hand, as if to take hers from over twenty paces. "But if there is no place for us in Hylia's either… why not turn our knives on the great liar? Why not betray our betrayer? With Ganon, we know where we stand."

The thought slammed into Zelda's mind, and she could not integrate it. It fell away from her. She fumbled for it, reaching, but it slipped through her fingers. Over and over it escaped her.

"I don't understand," she said, in her own voice.

"You wouldn't. You've forgotten. Hylia's blessings heaped up high for you: forgetfulness, as if that absolves you and your blood. But do not worry, princess. As far-seeing as you are, I will still show you. As wise as you are, I will still rid of your ignorance."

Something inside of Kohga began to boil. The thing under his skin heaved and whirled, pressing up against the inside of his uniform, a nest of vipers underneath his flesh, pressing out against his musculature. The Malice pouring out from behind his mask was no longer just smoke: it was fluid, running down his body, pooling on the ground in puddles that blinked at Zelda with great, golden eyes.

"As strong as you are, I will still break you with the truth."

She felt an echo, then, of a power far greater than any she had ever faced directly. She felt the earth spewing blood, and the courageous dying meaningless deaths, and the lives of heroes going out as the gods wept in the heavens.

"You," she said, stopped, swallowed. He was still staring at her. The world seemed to have shrunk to this conversation. This point. "You went to the castle. You saw it. You saw… everything."

She could see it now: a man, like the one in front of her but removed by time and by degrees of power, infiltrating the very war that waged at the heart of the universe. One man seeing light and darkness clash. One man who worshipped the dark. Calling out to it. One man at whom the darkness looked back.

It was impossible. It was unthinkable. And it was true.

"Ganon touched you. Changed you."

"Yes," Kohga said. He sounded relieved and gloriously, deliriously happy. "I called out to my Master, and my Master answered. _I,_ of all people in the world, carry his blessing. I alone am an answer to you."

For a moment—just for a moment, the space between heartbeats—Zelda could feel the Calamity there in the canyon, standing with her.

Kohga held his hands wide. "So, you holy one, you _wretched_ child of the liar! I will share with you that blessing. I will show you the nothingness into which you cast us. You carry all the power of Hylia, but mine is the power of Ganon!"

Imagine a cup overflowing with bubbling pitch, as if the bottom has been cut away and it sits above an inexhaustible well, liquid darkness roiling and hissing and spitting as if flows down from the cup's lip. Imagine that the cup is a man, and that his lip is hidden beneath a mask. Imagine that the flow does not hold for the problem of gravity, or of space, that it flows outward like a growing, living thing. The pitch opens its dozens of golden eyes. The man is smothered beneath it as the darkness conforms to his shape—but larger, leaner, more sharply defined than a human body could be.

Kohga rose up to the fullness of his height, and his head blocked out the light of the Sun as Zelda looked up at him. His mask was so small on him now, nearly floating on the long-limbed bulk of his Malice-infused body.

Zelda realized she was shaking. Hylia's power threw strange shapes on the wall as the light wavered. She couldn't stop. Why couldn't she stop?

Kohga spoke, in a voice that blotted out thought:

"And before Ganon, the gods can only tremble."

* * *

Paya had fatally wounded her opponent six times. The other woman was stronger than she was, and with the Malice driving her she could match Paya's speed, but Paya was still the better fighter. A blade puncturing the lungs; a blow to the third vertebra to knock it out of alignment; a palm strike perfectly angled to break the bones of the nose and drive them deep into the skull, _through the Yiga mask_ ; sequential severing of three major blood vessels; a cut throat; an impalement of the lower stomach; all of these victories were a comfort to her, in a removed way. She _was_ the better fighter. She was! She hadn't been sure, going into this.

A fist drove into her diaphragm and she felt something rupture as blood forced its way up her throat and into her mouth. She could not draw a breath but hadn't expected to be able to. She struck her opponent in the throat (useless), kicked the inside of the left knee to dislocate it (an easy but insufficient delaying tactic), and then struck her opponent's sternum with both of her palms, feeling all of the assassin's ribs break loose from each other at the point of impact (good, but not deep enough).

The Yiga woman staggered backward. Paya should have followed up by pursuing, by bringing her opponent down and taking her to pieces, but she couldn't.

 _I lost the opportunity after the first exchange. If I'd known how much she could heal I would have made sure it didn't matter. But now…_

Now the assassin stood in place, rolling her neck around her shoulders, languid and unconcerned. The bones in her chest were shifting and mending as Paya watched. She was _infested_ with the Malice, so that her skin practically hissed with it; it felt as if she was holding many times more than any of the other Yiga. The touch of Zelda's blessing on Paya's sword had been enough to destroy the Malice in the assassin who had attacked them in Gerudo Town, but against this woman it only seemed to make the Malice angrier.

 _A gift from Kohga?_

It didn't matter.

Paya checked her own limbs for the seventh time in the past few minutes. Two broken ribs from the first exchange, but she'd been spared any other broken bones. Her left shoulder was still raw, still screaming, from when her opponent had dislocated it and Paya had forced it back into place. After Paya had turned the other woman's weapon on her, almost all of the Yiga's attacks had been with her hands, concentrating on blows to Paya's diaphragm and midsection. She was well-trained to withstand attacks on her abdomen, but she was bleeding internally. Badly before, and worse since that last hit. Her wrists and ankles had been pushed to their limits in turning aside her opponent's attacks, and the cartilage would soon tear. How much longer could she keep fighting?

The sound of bones knitting back into place finally stopped as the Yiga woman sank into an offensive stance.

 _I have to put her down in the next exchange. It's the only chance I have._

Paya breathed in. Held it. Breathed out. The blessing was a song in her heart. She held to it. She would fight. She wasn't Link, but she would not fail here. She would keep fighting until she had won.

The Yiga woman moved. Paya shifted her shield arm and rushed forward. Over the wind of their own motion, the breathing of the crowd around them, the thunder of all of their hearts beating as one, none of them heard four sets of heavy footsteps coming down the entrance hallway.

Paya swung her shield for her enemy's face. Her enemy grabbed on with both hands, tore the shield from Paya's grip, flung it into the crowd. Paya feinted a swing for her opponent's neck, and when the protective arm came up she shifted it to slice at the kneecaps, instead. The blessed sword's tip bit through connective tissue and severed bone. The Yiga gasped, reaching reflexively for both her legs, leaning forward before she realized she did so.

Paya's shield clattered on the floor. She dropped her sword. Reached out with both her hands, wrapping them around the assassin's skull. Shoved the head down. Brought her right knee up with all the force in her body.

The first impact split the mask, sending white shards spinning across the arena floor. The second echoed with the sound of meat under a hammer. The third was loud, crackling, as the occipital and nasal framework broke like porcelain. The fourth and fifth were duller as blood and Malice sprayed on the floor and on Paya's armor. Then Paya's exhalations were louder than the blows themselves.

She let go, and the Yiga woman staggered back.

Paya reached for her sword. Her fingers almost refused to obey her, but her grip on the hilt was firm. The sword was warm. She rose as the assassin still staggered, leading with her splayed left palm to orient her body along a line of action. She would take her enemy's head, then see if the Malice could heal _that_.

The assassin was already looking at her. Paya froze in place.

The Yiga woman's broken bones, the entire assault just laid into her, didn't reflect on her appearance at all—the bones had broken, but the flesh was being held in shape by the Malice under her skin. Only it wasn't all under her skin. The left half of her face was coated in it, the border between flesh and darkness forming a line running from her hairline above her right eyebrow down to her left cheek. Her left eye was nearly blocked out completely by the Malice pressing in on it from all sides, but maybe that didn't matter: two more golden eyes had sprouted, one in the Malice on her cheek and a much larger one beside the woman's own.

The woman smiled. There was darkness in her mouth, but her teeth shone white.

"Are you all right, cousin? You seem upset."

A gust of cool breeze blew across the arena—and then it wasn't cool, it was cold, it was _frigid_ , Paya's breath condensing in the air in front of her face.

A man called out from the rear of the crowd, nearest the hallway toward the fortress entrance:

" _Ice rod!_ "

The two combatants turned their heads simultaneously as a wave of cold and wind passed over the crowd, condensing the ambient moisture in the air into a thin film of ice that clung to the dozen or so nearest the door. The smell of ozone filled the air as someone loosed a thunder arrow. There was an eruption of lightning that shot through the gathered Yiga like a blow from the gods.

Paya moved first. The crowd around her erupted into chaos as weapons were drawn and voices raised and more thunder rang out but she pushed it out of her mind. Her opponent was still looking toward the commotion; the Yiga woman didn't react before Paya gripped her Malice-infested head with the crook of the elbow, pulled back, and rammed her sword hard into the side of her opponent's neck. The blade's tip punched through completely, hissing with Malice as it jutted from the flesh on the opposite side.

There was a struggle, then, in the midst of the chaos (and though the crowd surged and there were eruptions of ice and lightning, not a foot was set inside the ring). Both of the assassin's hands came up, clenching on Paya's arms, trying to break her grip while she heaved at bone and sinew. Her blessed sword was shining in its battle against the Malice's corruption, but the eruption of fluid that sprayed from the other woman's neck was not blood. There was no end to it. She had to get the head _off_.

An elbow landed in her ribs, breaking another two. She kept pulling. Another elbow. She didn't know how many broke that time, but nothing she'd felt had ever hurt like that. She kept pulling. A third elbow struck home. Blood exploded from her mouth, propelled by the pressure applied directly to her lungs, and she began to realize exactly how badly she was hurt. She realized she was beginning to drown.

She let go and ripped the sword free and outward. Kicked her opponent firmly in the back of the neck. Fell backward. Struggled to rise. To breathe.

A figure in white and gold slammed into her opponent, knocking the much smaller woman sprawling. Paya tried to clear her vision again. Looked up. Surprised herself by how easily she remembered the woman in front of her.

"Ser—" oh, talking hurt. "Sergeant Liana?"

"Hey, kid," Liana said, offering her a hand. Paya waved it off; being pulled up by an arm sounded like the most painful thing imaginable. Liana withdrew her arm, looked at Paya hard, seemed to take note of her injuries. "We came for Barta. She said you'd freed her. Where's the Thunder Helm?"

She breathed once, deeply. Thought of how well her grandmother could speak in spite of pains. Controlled herself. "Zelda is retrieving it from Kohga now. She will return with it shortly, and we can take it back to Gerudo Town."

Liana's expression, above her veil, said that she was going through a thousand possible scenarios in her head. The sounds of fighting behind her were unbelievable. "We need to get to a more defensible position and hold out until she's finished."

"You should," Paya agreed. "But I can't run."

"Then I'll carry you, girl! On your feet!"

The voice from behind Liana said, "She's not going anywhere."

Paya had seen Liana practicing with her spear in the training yard; she was disciplined in the Gerudo style, and as strong as any warrior could be at nine feet tall and with the broad musculature needed to fill out that frame. The sight of the Gerudo sergeant with golden spear in hand whirling on the small Yiga woman would have been ridiculous—except that when Liana saw the assassin's face she recoiled.

The assassin smiled.

"Sergeant," Paya said, "please don't interfere. She's my opponent. If you fight her, she will kill you and then she will kill your squad. None of your weapons can bring her down."

The assassin's smile grew wider.

Liana threw an angry, frightened look over her shoulder, though her spear stayed trained on the assassin's face. "And yours can?"

The blessing that Paya held inside of her resonated with her sword, and Paya decided.

"Yes. But I need a moment."

Liana's grin told through the wrinkling of her eyes. "Well. Buliara's going to kill us anyway when she finds out we stole that Blizzard Rod. Why not die fighting, right?" She raised her voice over the din. " ** _Squad, form up on me! Hold this position for as long as you can!_** "

Liana stepped past the assassin, driving toward the crowd, forcing them back with her superior reach, thrusting and killing where she could. Waves of cold washed over all the gathered warriors of the Yiga, over and over, as Kotta poured her vitality into keeping the masses locked down. Thunder arrows roared as Leena fired again and again and again, paralyzing those who were just beyond the cold's reach. Barta whooped, sweeping aside Yiga with her golden broadsword, and was shoulder to shoulder with Liana.

Paya ignored it all. Her opponent ignored it all. They faced each other.

 _I have been a coward_.

The pain in Paya's shoulder was unbelievable. She couldn't breathe. She stood with perfect posture, holding her eight-fold blade gripped tightly in both hands, blade tilted ever so slightly forward.

 _I cling to Zelda's blessing, to Hylia's blessing, as if it were a gift. But no blessing is_ just _a gift. Whether intended or not, each is also a charge. An obligation. A tool._

The Yiga warrior produced her sickle blade as if pulling it from the shadows. Sank down into an attacking stance. She was still smiling, though that smile did not reach the golden eyes staring out from the darkness that had swallowed half her face.

 _I must be willing to use it. I must be willing to perform my duty._

They lunged at each other. The distance between them fell away to nothing. The world slowed to a crawl.

The Yiga swung for Paya's neck.

 _I must protect her._

Paya parried. Spun underneath the follow-up strike from the other woman's fist. Lead with the tip of her blade. Leaned into her shoulder. Jammed her sword into her opponent's heart.

 _By my blood and my blade_.

Paya reached inside of herself, for the brilliant warmth of Zelda's blessing, that shining warmth that had been passed to her in Kakariko Village, that was like a soft hand on her cheek.

 _I must protect her._

The blessed sword was a medium for the stronger blessing that Zelda had put inside of her. She willed it there. Willed it into the blade. Willed it into the heart of her enemy. Felt as it passed from her, leaving an emptiness behind it—a warm emptiness, a happy emptiness, a _fulfilled_ emptiness, but an emptiness. The blessing landed in the heart of the Malice in her enemy's body. It shone. It flared.

The Yiga assassin's eyes went wide for one brief moment before the Malice covering her face began to burn away.

* * *

The wave of force that struck Zelda sent her flying; if not for Hylia's power, she would have been dashed upon the stone. Her armor groaned under the impact, but she barely felt it. She barely felt anything.

Kohga's power, Ganon's power, filled creation like smoke filling an empty room. She was buffeted by it from every direction, darkness pushing in past Hylia's light, sending bright lances of pain that was more than physical screaming across the surface of her thoughts, raking hot coals across the stuff of her very being. She screamed, in that soundless space that was deeper than the body.

She threw Hylia's power against Kohga's and was met by a wall as vast as the Deku Tree and far, far more terrible. The wall laughed. Struck out at her again.

The impact destroyed her. She had to put her mind back together just to feel it. She wasn't even aware of her physical body now; it barely mattered. This was worse than the Blights. This was worse than anything she'd ever seen. Anything she'd ever imagined.

 _Is this the Calamity? Surely it can't be worse than this. Surely there cannot be more_.

Kohga laughed, and that laughter was the thunder.

"Poor princess," he said, and his voice echoed from everything more insistently than her own had. "So buffeted about you have lost your sense of place. So buffeted about you have not noticed the most terrible thing of all."

Most terrible thing of all? What a preposterous phrase. What a preposterous idea. There wasn't room for it. The pain was pushing it out.

But the amnesiac clung to the words, and the princess clung to the sense of place, and the oracle clung to the light, and Zelda said in a voice that was whipped away in the maelstrom:

"What?"

Kohga laughed. "Did you forget how you came to this place? Did you think this was the only front of this battle?"

Cold. Silence. The pain was gone. The maelstrom was gone. Kohga's power filled the universe, but Zelda was somewhere deeper than that, deeper than everything, and in that place it was cold, and quiet, and it was in that place that Kohga's words reached her.

 _What? Only front in the battle? Against Ganon? He can't be talking about Link. He can't—_

She realized.

She came back to her body. Raised her head. Looked away from the horror that Kohga had become, to throw her awareness toward the place behind the false wall.

"Paya?"

* * *

The other woman's face was clear of the Malice as her strength drained out of her. Paya could feel the Malice burning away inside of the Yiga, could feel as the blessing beat itself to nonexistence against Ganon's power.

The battle went on all around them. It didn't matter. In that moment, they two were the only ones in the hall.

The Yiga slumped against the Sheikah. Paya lowered herself to a knee as they both sank. She put her other arm behind the Yiga's back, cradling her.

"I'm sorry," Paya whispered in the Yiga's ear.

The Yiga reached up with her hands. Put them on Paya's cheeks. Her palms and fingers were warm. Her eyes were clear and wet.

"I'm sorry, too." The assassin's expression was neutral. Blank. Unreadable.

There was Malice on her forearms. Paya saw it too late.

"You lose, cousin," the Yiga said, and died.

The Malice had been all around Paya since she had stepped into the Yiga Fortress. She had been inhaling particles of it from the beginning. She had been exposed to greater amounts of it in their trek through the hideout, and especially in Kohga's room. The Malice had been hiding in her, she realized. Only Zelda's blessing had kept it in check. Without Hylia's power, and with the surplus power from the assassin's body—

Her vision went dark as the Malice swept through her body, and then her thoughts, and deeper still. The world was growing further and further away.

"Paya?"

Zelda's voice reached out to her from across the dark. She looked up. Tried to see her princess.

Then there was a hand, bigger than the world, bigger than the very _idea_ of the world, and that hand was all the darkness that had ever been. It reached for her, closed around her, and pulled her soul away.

* * *

Liana, Leena, Kotta, and Barta fought valiantly in the heart of the Yiga fortress. It was a losing battle, but they were holding out, through better reach and a squad's training and an advantage in their weapons planning. All of their focus was on surviving.

They did not see the last exchange between Paya and her opponent.

They did not see as both women collapsed to the ground.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE:_** Well, see you all next chapter!


	36. Kohga and Ganon

Consider Kohga.

In another time, another life, Kohga was at the center of a cult, his position fortified by and actively enhancing his personal charisma. Learned but weak; secure in his overconfidence. Almost comedic.

That same man still lived, somewhere in the thing that now used his name. Surely it had been the same man who had traveled to Hyrule Castle, sneaking around or averting the eyes of the attendant Guardians, gazing up in awe and terror at the green light that shone from the highest tower, stopping his ears against the clamor of a man fighting with something that was far worse than a god. Surely it had been the same man who had stood on the precipice, looking down into the pit where the battle for the world was being waged, and descended on his long rope. Surely it had been the same man who had seen the lull in the battle, when his master and the eternal enemy had stood gathering their strength. Surely it had been the same man who called out to Ganon, who received an answer.

It was not the same man who escaped from that pit.

Zelda had said that Ganon had changed Kohga, but that was not wholly true. The core of him was still intact, buried between layers of Malice and power so complex that he wasn't able to identify that his behavior, his words, were no longer his own. When he looked into a mirror he saw the curse crawling underneath his skin, pushing at his flesh, begging to be released, and he saw this as a new self. It was still _him_ , Kohga insisted. Zelda's accusation was, very nearly, an affirmation.

But Kohga still lived. He still remembered. He still experienced the world through the filter of Ganon's power.

He felt it as the Sheikah girl's soul was snatched from her body, pulled to some remote place that Kohga was not privy to. He felt it as the princess realized what had happened and her power guttered. He summoned up all of the infinite strength that Ganon had given to him. The more he drew, the more he _was_ Ganon, the more he could taste the agony in the air, the fear, the upwelling of defeat. Yes. Yes, giving the Sheikah to Ganon had weakened Zelda as they'd anticipated. Perhaps she would be angry; perhaps she would be cut off from the power by this imbalance inside of herself. It didn't matter.

Zelda's thoughts filled the air like a mist, pounding on the exterior of Kohga's mind like hands on a door, only kept out by the strength of the Malice in his skull. He relished that panicked feeling, that sense of desperation. He had to hear. He had to _know_. He opened the door, just a crack. Just enough to hear the words the princess was screaming in her skull:

 _ALL OF IT ALL OF IT_ _ **ALL OF IT**_

There had never been a sunrise so bright as the light filling the canyon, then.

He had thought she would rush to Paya, leaving herself vulnerable to his attack. He had thought he would kill her, and secure Ganon's victory. When she turned to him, the golden light underneath her skin, the fullness of the power of the betrayer swirling in her body like a liquid that sang the song of creation, there were tears in her eyes. And yes, there was fear. The beginnings of grief, too, which was held at arm's length. Urgency.

And _fury_. Unspeakable, inhuman fury.

With a warrior's eyes he saw her assess him, identify him as the primary threat, and then there was no distance between them.

He lashed out with all of the power in his body and she turned the blow aside as if she was swinging a shield that wasn't there. The outpouring of his strength did not shatter the walls of the canyon; the stone was blown apart, propelled into the north, where rubble would rain in the highlands for miles and miles. Her face was right in front of his. She was looking at him. Not at the Malice, not at the body he had built for himself out of Ganon's power. At _him._

 _I have not shaken like this since the castle_ , he thought, because it was true.

The fight that followed wasn't physical. There was a physical _aspect_ to it, of course. Zelda was wearing armor made in the ancient Sheikah style, wielding an enormous sword with rows of shredding, rotating teeth. He moved lithely, quickly, but she anticipated his reach and caught his Ganon-given hand with that unkind weapon. Her power flowed through it. The hand exploded, was replaced. She was on him. Cutting into his chest. Fighting like a woman who did not understand how to fight but understood, intrinsically, how to do violence. There was that element.

More important, though, was the battle that took place invisibly between them. They occupied the space where souls might connect with one another, he armored in Ganon's strength and she overflowing with Hylia's. If he won here, then nothing that Zelda did in the physical plane would matter; as soon as she was defeated here her life would wink out all at once. It should have been a glorious thing, he reflected; fighting against the liar goddess with the strength of her destroyer, even if he were to lose, was the ultimate fulfillment of the purpose of the Yiga.

But it wasn't. Something was wrong.

He threw his hate—not just his hate, but all the Yiga's hate, ten thousand years of hate—across the void, and that hate was scooped up and amplified by Ganon's hate, Ganon's hate that was so vast that the grievances of the Yiga felt almost petty in comparison. It was a hate that could break the world.

It struck her, and there was a sound like a bell as it struck the fullness of her heart and was turned aside.

She moved across the void, arms reaching for him. He met her in the center. Meant to wrestle with her, to break her with the enormity of Ganon's blessing. But she was living light in his grip, slipping between his fingers and sinking talons into his flesh and then the light was inside of him, eating at him. He bit her, then, willing the Malice through his fangs, willing the Malice to blot out the light, to darken the world without any hope of a new dawn.

The light was in his mouth, plunging down his throat, rising up and into his brain. It was everywhere. It was everything. He had never felt anything like it; he had never dreamed of anything like it. The Yiga did not have space for such possibilities in their teachings, in their worldview. He screamed in agony as the Malice burned and the light ate away at everything he had thought himself to be, but deep within himself, in the part that was still Kohga the man who had been raised on stories of the deep and petty evils of the royal family, he reflected that it did not really hurt. It was warm.

Blue-green eyes locked with his, physically and spiritually, and he could not look away.

 _That isn't Zelda_ , he thought.

He fell to his knees. Looked down.

He was back in his body now—not just removed from the spiritual plane but really back in _his_ body. He was in front of the pit, he realized. His uniform was shredded, though his gloves were intact. His mask was back on his face.

And Ganon was gone from him.

Kohga looked up. Zelda stood over him. But it wasn't Zelda, too. It wasn't Zelda whose hair floated as if blown by a strong wind, whose golden blood ran down her shoulder from a bite mark that hadn't been inflicted on her physical body, who looked at him with eyes that had seen the world turn and suffer and rise and suffer again and again. She looked down at him from across ten thousand years of abandonment, of wrongdoing, and she had the gall to be weeping tears of molten light. They were not for him, of course. They couldn't be. They were for the girl. They were for Paya.

"You are how I always imagined you," he said, with all the venom he could.

The ringing of her power did not fade. But when she spoke, it was with Zelda's voice:

"Please."

He would not have guessed there was a place inside of him that was still capable of feeling what that word made him feel; he had given it up under the knife, had offered it to Ganon, had willed it away. Why would it remain? How _could_ it remain?

He made the sign of the crumbling lock, of rising pain—and behind Zelda the sands shifted as a chest rose from the ground.

Zelda still stared at him. What did she want? Her goal was behind her. Both her goals were behind her. Why wouldn't she stop looking at him as if there could be understanding? Why wouldn't she let go of this moment? She had so much to do. She had already broken him.

"Go," he said. He did not sound as angry as he had meant to.

She damned him with the sadness in her eyes, lingering on him for three more interminable seconds before turning from him. The chest flung itself open, practically launching the Thunder Helm into her hands. She ran, then, still resplendent in her power. The false wall crumpled in front of her as if a giant had crushed it, and then she was gone, her light retreating into the fortress.

The wind blew through the canyon.

He rose to his feet, looking after the retreating girl, and did not tear his eyes away from the place where he'd last seen her back. If he concentrated, he could still see her: golden hair trailing behind her, the blue lights in her armor nearly (but not completely) lost in the deific radiance.

Kohga closed his eyes. Breathed. Tried to remember the feeling of her looking at him. How that had… changed him? No. Not more than Ganon had changed him. Not in moments. He had carried Ganon's power for years. What did that mean? He could feel it in himself: he was the same person he had been those long months back when he had first gone to the castle. Before, even. But, then, was he? There had been something in the light.

The Yiga Master removed his mask, tossed it onto the ground.

"We are the true Sheikah," he said, to the presence that was no longer there. "We waited for so long, without a sign, or a word, or… anything. We prayed to you for so long. We wished so desperately to bathe in your radiance, to share in your wisdom. Did you know we would fall to the dark? You must have. What purpose did it serve?"

 _How much did it hurt her?_

He clamped down on the thought. Tried to strangle it. Failed. Couldn't get it out of his mind. Couldn't… couldn't do anything. It was too much, all at once.

 _How long have we toiled for nothing?_

A shadow moved through his heart. There was a moment—only a moment—where he felt dizzy.

He had always allowed for the possibility that Ganon would kill him, one day. He was a fool, but he was not _that_ ignorant; to serve the destroyer meant, ultimately, to be destroyed. In some remote corner of his mind he thought that the light that had suffused him just now might have made him safe, might have severed entirely the connection between himself and his master. That was a foolish thought, of course. It had always been foolish.

He began to burn. He looked down at himself as the fires of the Calamity ate at him. It was more than just fire, was doing more than charring him—his very silhouette was beginning to dwindle.

He wanted to writhe. Ganon wanted him to writhe, choked by agony. He did not. He was Yiga, was master of his own pain. But he did burn. He did weaken. He lost his balance. He fell backward.

He saw the sky begin to shrink. The pit had been used for executions for thousands of years. If there was a bottom, no one had seen it except the dead. He would be falling for a long time, though he would not be alive for most of it.

Consider Kohga.

He did not scream as he fell. He did not think of Ganon, or of the pain, or of any particular thing save one: he alone, of all the Yiga who had prayed and hoped and raged and defied the sky throughout history, had seen the face of the goddess.

He fell, and he fell, and he fell, and eventually the darkness swallowed him.

* * *

Paya did not, at first, understand where she was or what had happened.

There had been pain, and surety, and emptiness. The taste of blood in her mouth. Her sword in her hand. The radiance of Zelda's light passing through her and into… the other woman. Kohga's acolyte. Ganon's servant. Yes. She remembered.

And then the hand. The dark. A great and terrible wind, a wind so great she hadn't been able to breathe. She still couldn't breathe. Why couldn't she breathe? Why wasn't her chest screaming for air?

 _The hand._

 _Ganon!_

She had seen, once, with the vision of Hylia; she did not remember the experience well, because it demanded a kind of sensory understanding that her mind had not fully mapped to in the short time she'd spent linked to Zelda, but she remembered the _feeling_. The context. What it had been to be more than a body, to be unfettered by her physical senses. Her soul had eyes of its own, she knew.

Paya understood in that moment that she was not in her body. She had to see by other means. She willed herself to. Looked up.

Do not think ill of her when I say that she was nearly destroyed by what she saw. There is a tendency to reduce the effective terror of something when it is translated to words or even to images. Distance, representation, and abstraction allow us to beggar scale to something that we can compartmentalize, if not actually understand. A Hinox may seem almost comedic in the abstract, but the reality of being next to one, of knowing it meant harm, would invest a kind of terror that is impossible to reduce to words. When Paya looked up with the eyes of her soul she was confronted not with an idea but with a reality.

The hand that held her—and it was so much vaster than she that she thought it like a mountain—was like a mote of dust resting on a single leaf at the end of a branch split off from a bough reaching down to a mighty tree vaster by far than the guardian of the Lost Woods. But it wasn't a tree. It was a fire. It was a volcano, spewing death and hate. It was a storm, promising rain that would scourge the land. It was a stretch of desert wider than the world. It was rot. It was Malice. And it was bigger than the universe.

There, then, in truth and for herself did Paya see the soul of the Calamity.

It shifted, and beyond it she saw another cloud of oblivion, equal in size to the one that held her. She couldn't understand. Were there two? Was there a whole cosmos of Ganons? Were they _everything_? And why did that one in the infinite distance dance with blue lightning, when this one did not?

The Calamity turned its vast head, and it was like watching a planet spin on its axis. Golden eyes larger than the moon stared down at her.

"Ah, good." The Calamity's voice was an earthquake, but she understood it still. "I had hoped you might share in this with me. You've helped me so much, in my attempts to reach this moment."

She was cold—in that place she could feel cold. "What?"

"Not actively," it said. "All the active work was mine. Still. You will share in my triumph, I think. I have just tied up a loose end." Did the Calamity smile? She could not tell. There was no mirth there. "Do you know Kohga thought of his people as the true Sheikah? As if either of your tribes has any idea of what that means."

Its grip tightened, and she was caught between two tectonic plates shifting. She couldn't even scream; the pain was unlike anything her body had ever felt. It hated her, she understood. It hated her so much. It had so much hatred inside of it that there was no equal force in the world, and right now all of that hate was focused on her as if she had done every wrong that it had ever believed itself to suffer.

"Now, now." Its grip loosed, however slightly, and the pain abated. "If you don't control yourself, you'll miss out on the show."

"What," she said, wrenching one arm free, seeking purchase or a weapon or anything and finding nothing at all, "what _show_?"

The hand shifted through that interminable space, and then she was in front of Ganon's face. She wondered if she would burn away at the heat and the light of its eyes, but she stubbornly continued to exist.

"Well, I should really show you, I think. You could say you're the star, after all."

She was rotated. Made to look out across the vastness of infinity. In spite of that infinite distance, that infinite space, she understood where she was supposed to be looking and was able to see it clearly.

She understood, then, the fullness of what Ganon had done, and what its plans were. She could see it in the shadows as her body lay smouldering on the floor, as Zelda moved through the fortress to find her.

Months ago, Paya had believed that prayer was the only thing she could offer to the Princess and the Hero in their quest to defeat Ganon; that there were active participants in the battle for existence and there were those who were meant to support them. It was not a smaller thing, not a shameful thing, to provide support. She understood that. She understood, too, that support was all she had been.

That girl would have wept to see what was coming. She would have lost herself in her wailing, and her fear, and the enormity of the evil that was about to be wrought. She would have looked on, still and silent and sobbing as everything she loved crumbled to ashes.

She was not that girl. Hers was not the same soul that had faced down a lone Yiga on the road from Kakariko.

Paya no longer had Zelda's blessing. She no longer had the weapons that she had used to fight off the darkness on so many occasions. She no longer carried Hylia's power in her chest.

But she had her self. She had her will.

Her free right hand she sharpened into a blade. She willed it to cut. She thrust it against the enormity of the power that constrained her.

The blade of her will bounced off of Ganon. She struck again, and again, and again, unceasing, uncaring if she beat herself to nonexistence against it, if it destroyed her on a whim.

She did not see as the Calamity, however briefly, turned its attention back to her.

She did not see that—imperceptibly, by degrees of degrees too fine to measure—she was growing in Ganon's grip.

* * *

Liana, Leena, Kotta, and Barta fought against the Yiga. The power of the Blizzard Rod ran dry, and the thunder arrows ran out, and then it was three spears and one great sword forming a barrier around the arena where Paya and the Yiga assassin had fallen. Their enemies harried them, taking their time, not pushing in too hard. They would pick an appropriate moment. Perhaps they aimed to keep the Gerudo alive until Kohga should return and decide their fate.

That is not what happened.

There was sound, like the ringing of a bell, and a terrible golden light. It swept through the fortress like a wave, and the Malice exploded at its touch, vaporizing and then dissipating as if it had never existed. Golden eyes crumbled to nothing and yawning mouths opened until they were nothing but blank spaces and black puddles dried up. The Yiga and the Gerudo both looked in the direction of the light—Kohga's room—as it swallowed them up.

There went up a cry from the Yiga as the Malice inside of them disappeared. Some of them succumbed to wounds that their infusions had barely been holding together, falling onto the ground and bleeding in great torrents. Most, though, simply looked down at their hands, found that they were no longer as strong as Ganon's hate had made them, and that they did not understand why their heads were so quiet.

Zelda stepped into the chamber, the Thunder Helm in her hands. The Yiga shielded their eyes, and the Gerudo did not have to. They saw her, saw the Thunder Helm. Liana responded instantly.

"Barta! Grab the girl! The _Sheikah_ girl, you fool! Stick with me!"

Liana and Leena both turned with their spears to make a path through the Yiga—but the Yiga parted, avoiding the Gerudo weapons entirely, staring openly at Zelda as she took slow, careful steps forward. The Hylian woman was shaking visibly and looked only to them, to Paya, limp in Barta's arms.

Seeing Paya, Zelda grew very still.

Barta flinched and lifted Paya up high enough to press her ear to the girl's chest. She listened for a moment, her eyes closed, as if blocking out the sound of Zelda's power, and then her face lit up in a brilliant, triumphant smile.

"It's all right! She's still alive!"

Taking Paya up and cradling her like she would have her own wounded sister, Barta ran ahead of Liana, earning her a shout that she ignored completely. It was all her squad mates could do to keep up with her. All four of them drew up to Zelda at the same time; Zelda was not looking at them as she handed over the Thunder Helm to the sergeant.

"Put her on the floor," she said to Barta, and Barta obeyed, setting Paya down gently and then backing away.

All four of the Gerudo turned again to the crowd of Yiga, Liana drawing her scimitar so she could still fight with the Thunder Helm tucked under one arm. They were prepared to fight their way out, as soon as Zelda did whatever magic she had to do to save Paya—but the Yiga were not moving. They were just staring. Waiting.

Zelda knelt next to Paya, putting her hands gently on either side of the Sheikah girl's temples. Mipha's healing power flowed through her, reaching in and down. And did nothing.

There were no wounds on her body.

With Hylia's awareness Zelda reached to the core of Paya's being, seeking some spark of the woman she had traveled with, the growing and thriving tree that had formed around a jewel.

She found nothing.

" _No_ ," she said, in defiance, and reached in again. Deeper. Feeling at the nothing, at the space where Paya should have been. Deeper. Deeper, until there was no deeper to go.

Paya was gone.

And then—in the very moment that she realized this, when reality asserted itself against her, smothering her hopes and validating her fears, shattering the world that she had been building—there _was_ something. A shifting. A creaking. A roar. A hate. A _hunger_.

Zelda pulled back, recoiling as if burned, staggering to her feet. She did not let go of Hylia's power. She still held all of it. She saw everything, felt everything, and understood perfectly as the air shifted around Paya's body. It was truth to her. She rejected it.

"No!"

The air shifted again, like the skipping of a heartbeat. Still facing the unmoving Yiga, the Gerudo looked over their shoulders as Paya's fingers tensed, her palms pressed flat against the ground.

Slowly, _slowly_ did Paya's body rise, with the languid surety of a person who had just woken from a nap.

Tall stood Paya's body, and straight. No Malice flowed from her. No power twisted the space about her head.

Her eyes opened. The sclera were black; the irises were orange, stretched vertically, and emitted a soft red light.

With Paya's teeth did Ganon smile.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE:_** See you all next chapter!


	37. Messenger of the Royal Family

_I will not scream._

 _He—it—is in front of me. Surely it can tell what it has done. To her. To me. To all of us._

 _This is not the first time. He has done this before. It has done this before! To the courageous. To_ me _._

The oracle dipped down into memory and Zelda remembered a life that was not her own, her body suspended in the air above a throne, the soothing dream she floated through while the twilight carried her soul for safekeeping and her body was put to deadly purpose.

 _Not to her! Not to Paya! I will not stand for this!_

The amnesiac and the princess and the oracle were roaring inside of her. Hylia _herself_ was trembling with the indescribable emotions of a god, humming beneath the surface of Zelda's skin. That trembling told in Zelda's hand as it clenched into a fist. Molten light poured out from between her fingers. Sought release. Sought purchase.

Paya, who loved her, was smiling with Ganon's expression. With Ganon's eyes.

 _If I do not speak I am going to collapse. If I do not fight this I am going to go mad. I can't. Oh, Paya, forgive me, I'm so sorry for bringing you here, please,_ please—

No. No she would not give in to despair. The power was in her, bolstering up the parts of her mind that wanted desperately to break down. If she hadn't had Hylia inside of her, would she have fallen? Would she have wailed, and begged for Paya's return, and given up on the spot? She didn't know. Certainly, it was possible. But the possibility could not be borne out in a reality where the light was hers. That light would not let her buckle. It let her speak, in clipped words that filled the hall:

"Put. Her. _Back._ "

Ganon's eyes shone and the grin grew wider.

Again, the Gerudo warriors looked over their shoulders. Barta and Kotta and Leena looked to Liana for guidance, and the sergeant's eyes flitted back and forth between Zelda's face and the back of Paya's head. Whatever was happening, the sergeant didn't understand, and Zelda only had room in her mind to acknowledge this fact. She couldn't rectify it. She had to focus on Ganon.

"Let her go!"

"Hey," Liana said, her voice quiet in the maelstrom. She ran the risk of turning her attention fully from the Yiga, facing the two small women. "If you two are up and ready, we have to—"

She reached out with her hand. Ganon's eyes darted toward Liana's direction. The smile did not drop away. Zelda saw what would happen perfectly.

" _Don't touch it!_ "

If Liana had reached another inch closer, Ganon would have grabbed hold of her and… well. But at Zelda's scream the guard recoiled, practically leaping backward to fall in line with the rest of her squad, and Ganon's eyes returned to Zelda. And spoke, in a voice that was not Paya's.

The Calamity had not spoken the tongue of the Gerudo in ten thousand years. It must have been a remarkably preserved language, because the phonemes had apparently changed very little in that span of time. The grammar and structure were badly out of date, however; Ganon used conjunctive particles that no longer existed, and missed entirely contemporary ones that would have leant clearer meaning to its sentences. Translated imperfectly and coarsely, its words might have gone something like this:

"Hie away, sisters mine, ere new gods blind and old reclaim."

The reaction among the four women was instant; Zelda could see the shift in them, but only as it happened. They all whirled on the speaker, turning their weapons toward Paya's back. The Yiga were forgotten. The enemy was in front of them.

"Ganon!" Liana called. "Ancient enemy of the people! Be gone from this place!"

" _Stop!_ " Zelda's shout shook the fortress to its foundations, sending torrents of dust falling from the ceiling. Unbelievably, the Gerudo ignored her, focusing instead on the embodiment of their ancestral shame. "Just run! I will tend to this!"

Ganon's smile fell away, for a moment, as its eyes grew wider and wilder.

"Wherefore art thou faithless, thou hateful, to draw steel against thy brother? Thy uncle? Thy king? Thy god?"

Zelda moved with a god's speed to interpose herself between Ganon and the four women. She could see Ganon turning slowly toward the Gerudo, though its eyes were locked on her as it did so, as if it were waiting for her to get into position. It didn't need to turn, of course. It didn't _need_ to raise its hand. These were only theatrics, meant to add drama to the fact of what it was doing.

She threw up a wall of Hylia's power as Ganon's strength flowed to smash the four guards.

Something inside of her began to break. The pressure drove her down to one knee. This was all the strength she had used to defend against Kohga, so much that she barely recalled the experience of having done so, easily as much and more than she had used in bringing down the Blights, and now she was matched. The balance was nearly perfect.

 _Is Ganon not leveling all of its strength? Would I even be able to tell?_

Then the pressure was gone as Ganon's ceased its assault, and Zelda dropped the wall of Hylia's power, and her physical senses re-asserted themselves. The Gerudo, thankfully, had drawn back—though distance might not be a protection, here. She nearly swayed on her feet but would not allow herself to. Ganon still had its eyes locked with hers.

"Stop using her face," Zelda said, and she could not name the thing she felt then. " _Get out._ "

"Are you so concerned for this girl?" Ganon's Hylian was considerably more practiced, more comfortable, than its Gerudo. "Has the icon of the goddess finally heard some echo of the love this child has for her?"

She pushed the words out, away, did not let them sink their hooks into the flesh of her mind. Floundered. Reached for anything to anchor herself. "Why are you doing this?"

"To hurt you." The smile remained. The teeth were still decidedly Paya's; there were no fangs. The lips moved normally. Ganon seemed to relish in the fact of having a body. "There are thousands of ways to hurt you, of course. You are ever the child of your blood. Still, this girl seemed perfect, because she loves you." A twitch in the eyebrows, a shifting of one corner of the mouth, and the smile became something else. "The bearer of your power is always so moved by the love of others. _Always_."

Zelda was no longer trying to hide her shaking. Trying to frame that monstrousness was more than she could allow herself. The idea of an ancient evil that sought to rule the world, to change the landscape into its own image, to yoke the cosmos—that image was easy to compartmentalize, if not understand. But this petty cruelty, to inflict so much harm on someone because of the truth in their heart. The image of it sat in her mind like a burning coal clenched in her fist, boiling away her flesh even as she couldn't let go.

 _He is hurting her to hurt me._

 _He is hurting her because she loves me_.

 _It is hurting her._

"Where are you?"

Paya had never smiled the way Ganon made her face smile; she had never laughed the way it made her laugh, long and low and deep, a rumbling that rattled the teeth in a listener's head. It did not answer.

Zelda breathed in through her nose. Gathered herself. Focused on the power. Focused on Paya. "You are not here, not in your fullness. If you were, I would not have been able to stop your attack just now. Your control of her body is remote; you are transmitting your will and your strength, but you are not _here_."

The laughter faded; the smile leaned closer to a sneer as Ganon tilted Paya's head. "Clever child, aren't you? There haven't been many as clever as you."

"You are not really here, and Paya is gone. I suspect that she is with you, as that is the only way you could keep her secure. So: _where are you?_ "

Ganon did not answer. Instead it stepped toward her. Something inside of her rebelled at seeing it walk; that gait was Paya's gait, that posture was Paya's posture, and seeing Ganon walk in her body made Zelda want to hide her face and pretend it wasn't there.

"There have been those of your blood who would see this as an opportunity to bargain," Ganon said. "To leverage what I want in such a way that might afford them advantage in the future. Your house's women have always been such _cunning_ creatures. But that isn't you, is it?"

Ganon stopped directly in front of her, looking at her with a demon's eyes set in Paya's face, and Zelda could feel the heat from Paya's skin. The two of them had never been this close, not once, not ever, and there was a scream building up inside of her that was drowning out the goddess herself.

"You are more concerned with truth. With rightness. With fairness. With doing _good_ , even more than triumph." Ganon leaned in close, whispering with Paya's lips against Zelda's ear. "Would you believe that I admire that about you?"

"Stop it," she said, and she could barely understand the words from her own mouth.

Ganon stood straight again, though Zelda still felt Paya's lips against her ear. "I wonder if that's something that I'm getting from the girl. Does it seem likely, to you? You are the researcher, after all. You are the goddess. You've seen her soul, too. Tell me. Is that me? Or her?"

" _Stop it,_ " and the words were nearly strangled.

"Maybe I should tell you the things she feels for you as I hold her in my hand." Paya's eyes fell contemplatively closed, and with that terrible light hidden it was possible to believe that Paya was standing there… until Ganon continued speaking. "You know her, yes, but right now? I think I know her best. She holds to such a delicate balance, controlling what she feels for you so that she might help you better. Her devotion is so pure, so intense."

"Stop—"

The eyes opened, blazing. "It reminds me of _his_."

The world froze, shattered, fell away to nothing.

There were no Yiga. No Gerudo. The fortress was gone; the desert was gone; Hyrule was gone. There was no war, no quest, no anything. The goddess was silent.

Only she and Ganon existed, and the Calamity continued:

"So strong, that one. Unbelievably so. No one has ever fought me like he has fought me. And every day, every hour, for a _century_ , he has fought with your name in his heart. It is not the sword that lets him fight me. It is not the blessing of the absent gods. Not the protection of the forest. Not the honor or duty of his legacy. It is _you_. Only you."

It echoed inside of her. Paya and Link. Suffering. For her.

Distantly she realized that Ganon was attacking her now, directly attacking her thoughts. That made it no easier to defend against. She felt no less cold, no less drained, knowing that this was not _just_ her reaction. The glow of Ganon's eyes did not counteract the resting calm of Paya's expression as the beast stared at her.

"A hundred years passes no more quickly for me than it does for one of you. Every day I am faced with his devotion. Every day you are the song in his heart. Every day I am cut open to honor his duty to you. Is it any wonder that some part of that should find purchase in me, too? That I should find myself changed? That when I took the girl to my breast, that she would resonate too? That with the enormity of their hearts, I would be able to understand what it is that they feel for you? What I should wish to tell you?"

Paya's hand came up. Rested on Zelda's cheek. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe.

"My Zelda."

It was a relief, an indescribable relief on a scale she had never imagined before in her life, when Ganon struck her.

Her awareness snapped back into place as the force of the blow sent her flying, not toppling but _flying_ , her body lifted off the ground and pinwheeling through the air to smash into the far wall. The stone broke. There was more empty air beyond it. Then another wall. Then more air. A third wall. A fourth. The fifth broke her momentum, and she slumped to the ground.

* * *

The shock of the impact ran up Paya's arm, her shoulder, all the way to her spine. She felt it as if she'd hit Zelda herself.

" _No!_ "

The things Ganon had been saying—those things she'd been able to block out, had been able to push away. Zelda knew that Paya loved her, that wasn't a weapon, but Ganon was trying to make it into one. Power flowed from it as it spoke using her mouth, and she saw as its strength smashed itself against the fortress of Zelda's mind over and over. Zelda was going to break. She had to do something. She had to do something!

All of that will she poured into her hand. How many times had she failed to hurt the Calamity? It didn't matter. She would fail over and over, would fail _forever_ , because she could not do nothing.

"Every time you strike me," the Calamity said, and its voice shook the cosmos, "I will strike her like I did just now." It turned its eyes down toward her. "She can heal much, but believe me when I tell you there are limits. Fight me, if you wish, but if you do then I will make you experience the act of beating your beloved princess to death."

The Calamity's words faded. Across unspeakable distance she heard the second nebula of Malice roaring, heard the distant crash of thunder.

Paya pulled her second arm free. Sharpened both hands into blades. Focused her will. Drove them both as hard as she could against the Calamity.

It crushed her in its grip, and everything was pain, pain indescribable, pain incalculable, and she struck at its hand, over and over and over. She _was_ the pain; the pain was everything. She took the pain and threw it back at Ganon, emptying out a sinking ship with a bucket, spitting in the ocean's face, and she struck over and over and over again.

There was not space in her mind to think with words, but these things she knew: that if Ganon had been able to kill Zelda using her body, it would have done so just now. That whatever its final purpose, it depended on some trap. That though she could not succeed, she had to fight. That she had to protect Zelda. That that was all that mattered.

She struck, knowing that she could not win, knowing it would be the last thing she ever did.

* * *

Lying on the floor, Zelda was given a few moments to reflect on the ways she had nearly failed, up to now. The ways she had taken lives that depended on her and nearly let them be spent to no end. How she had come into the world for a second time, as if reborn, and found that she was still a child trying to find her way in a world walked by gods.

One of those gods was inside of her. That counted for a lot.

With Hylia's power she drew the architecture of her mind. She had to be prepared for what was to come. The world was teetering in the balance ( _but that isn't new, it's teetered in the balance every time a bokoblin has laid eyes on me_ ) as she shored her defenses, armored herself in light, and infused herself with the very limits of her power. She had called on all of it, but of course she wasn't _capable_ of wielding all of it yet. If she could, she would be in the heart of the castle, fighting Ganon, all the Divine Beasts having been freed. Rescuing Paya. Rescuing Link.

So, no, she could not hold all of it.

But all of it that she could hold, she did.

Zelda rose to her feet. She filled the air, the fortress, with her power and her awareness. Ganon still stood in Paya's body, an infinitely dense space of yawning hunger that gave off no radiation, no Malice, as it stood waiting for her return. The Yiga had spread throughout the chamber, watching from every angle, impassive as corpses. The Gerudo, for all their courage and all that their weapons were still drawn on the Calamity, did not approach.

 _Good. Four less people to worry about_.

She stepped lightly over the rubble from the destroyed walls on her short trip back into the chamber. Ganon was waiting for her with a hungry, eager expression.

"Restore Paya to her body," Zelda said.

"If you want the little fool so badly," Ganon said, "come and get her yourself."

Ganon blinked once, and then was gone. Paya's eyes were clear again, sclera white and irises round and red—and empty, empty of light and of will as her body began to slump forward.

Zelda understood, from the intersection of her experiences and the wisdom of the goddess, what Ganon was doing. She had time to reflect, as she rushed to catch Paya's body before it fell.

 _The wise thing would be to gather my strength. To take the Thunder Helm to Riju. To free Urbosa and then Revali. Finish gathering my memory. Take all of my power into the battle with Ganon, and with all of Hylia's strength and the Hero beside me, to rescue Paya and the world._

 _Ganon believes I will not do that._

 _Paya suffers every moment. Perhaps less terribly than Link—very possibly more so. I would consign her to weeks of unspeakable pain. I do not know if it is possible to permanently wound a soul, but if anything can do it then Ganon can. Perhaps she will be utterly destroyed in the interim. All of which is to say:_

 _Ganon believes correctly_.

She caught Paya's body before it toppled, hooking her arms under Paya's, lowering both of them gently to the ground. She kept one arm behind Paya's back to keep her body upright, and for all the world it looked like Paya was sleeping sitting up. Her expression was so serene, free of worry or pain.

It was a foolish thing, to plunge into that dark space that souls occupied, where she had first spoken to the goddess at the very beginning of her new life. It was foolish to cast her infinite gaze about that parallel world, to see the vastness of the Calamity, to meet its eyes. To see that it held Paya in its fist.

 _Then I will be the fool_.

The amnesiac, and the princess, and the oracle were of one mind.

 _Hylia's sword will be unsheathed_.

The goddess herself did not gainsay Zelda; there was a unity of purpose, nearly so sweet as victory.

She soared across the darkness, a golden comet lighting the universe, propelled by the beating of mighty wings.

* * *

Paya had lost count of how many times her hand had bounced off of Ganon; she had long ago stopped being able to count, so terrible was the pain of its grip. She kept going. She would keep going until she was freed, or she was destroyed.

After interminable time the pressure slackened, and the pain abated. That did not stop her; she would not be stopped. But still. Still, even as she kept swinging, even as she felt the shocks running up her arms, she looked to follow the arc of Ganon's eyes. She had to see.

So, she saw.

She saw the distant light of Hylia's power, framed by feathers pulling Zelda across the ether. She heard the distant chime of the goddess's arrival. She knew, on a level more fundamental than the act of learning, that Zelda was coming for her.

"Are you calm, now?" Ganon's voice was amused. "I did not think you would call my bluff so enthusiastically. I have been watching you try to free yourself. But that is over. You see her there. You see how quickly she comes."

Zelda _was_ coming quickly. She was made vast by the power of the goddess, more resplendent than the physical world could ever hope to contain, and the space of that realm was melting away before her. As Paya watched, she could see Zelda folding the light between her hands, manipulating it until it started to take shape. Until it was a point. Until it was a _lance_.

Zelda held that lance before her as the distance dwindled, and Ganon barely restrained its laughter.

"As time has gone on, it has been a more and more common thing for the blood of the goddess to join the battle against me. In the old days, the oracles would always participate indirectly, through my machinations or through theirs, but for a long time they have been much more active. She, though? She is the only one who has ever come to me on her own."

Paya was no longer striking Ganon. She was trying to process what she was seeing. "Why… why would she…"

"For you, of course." It let that hang in the ether for a long moment. "I told her that if she wanted you then she would have to take you from my grip. You were truly perfect bait. I feel I should thank you."

There was something building inside of her, a pressure that started from a place she could not identify. Not caring if it was useless, not caring if it was foolish, she screamed into the expanse: "Zelda, **_stop!_** You can't do this!"

"No," Ganon agreed. "You can feel it, can't you? She is a match for my pawns, but as we are now she will be nothing to me directly. Still, she comes. See her spear? She will attempt to strike hard and deep, enough so to break my grip, then snatch you away and retreat. She knows she cannot defeat me, and yet she comes on anyway. She doesn't know how to fight, so instead she will try to _win_." Obscenely, the Calamity sounded fascinated.

It would have been easy to retreat to the place that Paya had occupied before, that sweet shelter of ignorance that allowed her to believe that Zelda's power was supreme in all the world. She could not do so. She had seen—was seeing—the Calamity for herself, understood that even at the zenith of the princess's power and the nadir of the beast's, Zelda would not be able to defeat Ganon. Not really.

 _If she tries to save me, she will lose, and the world will be lost._

She willed her hand into a blade. It… it wouldn't sharpen.

 _I can't._

Was this the Calamity? Was it affecting her as it had affected Zelda?

She looked up. Ganon's eyes were cast out into the void, waiting with preternatural eagerness for the arrival of its true prey.

 _No. No. I'm feeling this for myself. I can't give up like this._

 _What will trying do? Shall I break Ganon's grip in the moments to pass?_

 _I have to do something! I have to protect Zelda!_

 _I cannot protect her._

 _I have doomed her._

That thought. Was it hers? Was that from inside of her?

The pressure built, straining the very seams of her being.

Her grandmother was in Kakariko Village now, waiting in perfect faith that Zelda's quest would reach fruition; that Paya would aid Zelda on the long road to joining the Hero in battle; that light would triumph over dark; that, in the end, all would be well. Everyone in the Village took their tone from Impa, and each of them had faith in Zelda.

Prince Sidon did, too. So did King Dorephan. All of the Zora, young and old, even that hateful old councillor and the retired sergeant, were waiting on them to do what had to be done. Bludo and Yunobo and all the Gorons, Riju and Buliara and Leena and Liana and Barta and Kotta and… and the names kept coming, in their twos and tens and hundreds, names and faces that she did not know she had committed to memory, cascading past her in endless waves of lives that were balancing on Zelda's quest.

Lives that she had betrayed. Because she loved Zelda, and that was a weakness for both of them.

 _If I had left her._

 _If I hadn't felt this thing._

 _If we had never met._

Every face, every life, swirled around her, in her, through her, coalescing into a single, perfect expression: Zelda, in the distance, charging to her doom to save a woman who should not be with her at all.

 _When the world ends it will be because I failed it._

The pressure reached its apex. Something rose inside of her, not bile because she had no body but something worse, more malignant, more corrosive, and as it boiled over she began to writhe. The Calamity's grip had been nothing like this. Nothing had ever been anything like this.

 _I've killed her. I've killed us all._

She had an image in her mind of what it would be like when Zelda slammed into Ganon, and the Calamity grabbed hold of her. It had the unnerving clarity of prophecy. She saw golden wings torn free by enormous hands. Ganon's hands.

 _My hands._

The thing inside of her built up until there was nowhere else for it to go and she screamed. Her body could have never made a sound like it, a sound that rang across the boundless void, a sound that would have made the heavens quake. An infinite distance away, Zelda staggered at the pain of Paya's wail, redoubling her speed. Much closer, Ganon turned its inquisitive gaze on her once again.

After a long time, she stopped. The sound faded. She was emptied out, with nothing left of her. There was not even an echo; there was nothing to cast the echo back. The cry of her heart was lost to shadow.

Only silence answered her.

Silence.

And then: thunder.

* * *

Hylia's sword was not the blade in her hand. It never had been.

* * *

Space warped at the thunder's crash, and in the distance there was a howl of pain and fury so intense that it drew Paya's attention away from herself, away from the coming doom of the world. She felt nothing, but she looked, so distracted that she did not notice when the Calamity staggered.

The second Calamity, the second enormity of evil so vast that it was a universe unto itself, was exploding, shining through with white light from uncountable angles. As Paya watched it was torn apart, flinging its Malice and hate and rage into the vastness as a bolt of lightning danced in the space where it had been, leaping between the greater pieces of that other Ganon, blasting them to finer and finer smithereens.

Then the lightning peeled off from the maelstrom, streaking across that infinite space toward Paya. Toward the beast that held her.

The Calamity was turning to face it. Too slow.

Thunder roared as the lightning struck at Ganon's ankles, and the tendons there exploded with twin crashes of unleashed power, spewing Malice and fire into the void. The bolt coursed up Ganon's leg, cutting behind the knees, tracing a line of devastation up the torso and then along the left arm—cutting through the armpit, the inner elbow, running down the forearm.

The lightning was not lightning, Paya realized. It was a ribbon of light, cutting apart the darkness.

And it was held by a man.

Ganon's hand was gone, and she was falling.

An arm was around her, thin but strong, bracing her weight beneath her hips. She hit the—ground? There was no ground here. But she was lowered gently onto _some_ solid surface, and then the figure holding the lightning turned to face Ganon again.

Grandmother had told stories about the Hero, but because she was not that sort of storyteller she'd never really said what he had looked like. Paya had some image in mind of him, because she had been given the space to build that image on her own, but what she saw then was not his body. She, with the eyes of the soul, could only see the warrior as he truly was.

Link was brilliant—more than brilliant, like all the stars in the sky condensed into the frame of a single man. His soul was blue, burning bright to match Ganon's darkness, and that blue was broken up by flashes of red and green and cyan—the same colors as the fires that roared and danced inside the sword that was held together only by the delicate latticework of Hylia's power. The sword was like an extension of him, intensifying that radiance that let him cut through the darkness.

Ganon's severed hand hit the firmament of a place Paya could not see. The Calamity howled its fury as it turned on the Hero, collapsing onto its knees, but instead of moving in to attack, the blazing figure looked over his shoulder at Paya.

"Impa! What are you doing here?" His tone was not accusatory; he was genuinely bewildered, trying to fit what he was seeing into his experience. "Where is Zelda?"

 _He thinks I am my grandmother. He thinks I'm in my own body. He really_ doesn't _remember. He doesn't—_

Some echo of an indescribable pain welled up inside of her, radiated from Link, colored by his devotion, and in that moment Paya understood why Mipha and Zelda had wept for this man.

She would not weep. Instead she answered, "The princess is recovering her strength!"

Link's shoulders sank as tension passed out of him, as relief nearly brought him to the ground. "Good. That's… good." Then he was back, the sword lifted again.

Ganon's soul no longer held to the shape of a body. It was a roaring inferno with great golden eyes, staring down at Link, Paya forgotten. It howled a challenge.

Link said to her, "Can you escape?"

Paya looked over her shoulder. Zelda filled the entire horizon. "Yes!"

Link craned his neck to look up as the Calamity grew. The other nebula, rent asunder by the Master Sword, was rejoining its mass to this body. "Good. Go back to Zelda. Help her recover. I will hold Ganon until your return."

 _He doesn't see her. Is he only seeing with the eyes of his body? Is he not_ allowing _himself to see?_

"I will," she said. She looked up at the Calamity, which also no longer seemed to be aware of anything except for its century-long opponent. The Hero looked so small before Ganon's evil that she found her admiration and her disbelief warring inside of her. "Can you do this? Tell me the truth."

Instantly: "I will not fail."

Something inside of Paya shifted.

A golden hand wrapped around her, radiant and warm and gentle, conferring absolute safety in a universe that would deny her that security. Paya, by sheer force of will, anchored herself in place.

Ganon roared, and it was the sound that would end the world.

"We'll come back for you, Link! I promise we'll come back!"

He did not answer. He did not look back at her. He raised his left hand, fingers loose, gesturing his confidence.

"Link!"

She did not know if that voice was hers or Zelda's.

The universe was drowned out by the sound of mighty wings.

* * *

The Calamity, perhaps, sensed that its prey had drawn near to it and then escaped. Perhaps it didn't. The Hero's interruption had dragged it insistently back into the realm of the physical, offering no space for it to carry out its plans.

Possibly it did not reflect on this; more likely it did, and that fed its rage. That rage, though, amounted to precious little, with the Master Sword singing obliteration in Link's hand.

The Calamity writhed like a serpent on the ground, and Link attacked it from every angle, chopping and severing wherever possible. They were twin blurs of motion, light and dark, one much greater and one much more precise than the other. The sword's power filled the chamber with an unending series of deafening roars.

Ganon shoved, and Link avoided it by leaping away. Ganon's body was already dissembling, and it could barely push itself up into a position where it could stare at its enemy.

"You fool," the Calamity said, "you don't even know when you're beaten."

Link crossed the distance between them faster than Ganon could react. The Master Sword sang a high, clear note as it clove through Ganon's jaw and then cut a path upward.

Ganon's head exploded. It pulled back a limb, which coalesced into a fist, and swung for Link. The sword met it, and that too exploded into a torrent of Malice.

The sword flashed, over and over, like lightning striking in a storm.

Ganon fell, dissolving into fire and hate. Both bodies destroyed, the Malice that had comprised them began to flow together. No different from countless other times it had fallen, now.

Link staggered away from the center of the mass, finding a good vantage point from which to observe his enemy's recovery. He fell to his knee. Held himself up with the sword. Trembled.

He could not recall. Had he been talking to Impa just now? Had she been here? Had he been dreaming?

 _Zelda will be here soon_ , he told himself.

He believed.

He waited for Ganon to rise again.

* * *

She did not think of Link, of how close he had been. A part of her screamed that she had to return, to join the fight, to end Ganon then and there, but another part of her knew, insisted, that there were snares within snares and that she would be walking into another trap. She pushed the Hero from her mind. Paya was here. She had to help Paya.

The sensation of Zelda's body came back to her in stages: the damp coolness of the air in the Yiga fortress on her skin, the ringing echo of Hylia's power in her ears, the shining radiance of the goddess's presence fading even as her eyes adjusted, the smell of sweat and blood and Malice and pain, and the weight of Paya leaning against her arm. She shifted, resting the other woman's head against her shoulder.

"Paya," she said, coming to herself fully. She had held Paya, had come back to this place, had thought she had done it correctly, but the moment stretched out and she wasn't sure and the fear rose up in her again— "Paya!"

A stirring. A breath—a surprised one. The silver-haired girl going momentarily rigid, and then relaxing.

"You came for me," Paya said, in her own voice—small, weak, distant, as if speaking from a dream, but her own. She did not lift her head from Zelda's shoulder.

Zelda reached up with her right hand, resting it against the base of Paya's neck. Paya was on the edge of losing consciousness, and Zelda would not let her fall. "Of course, I did. Of course."

Paya sighed, and then all the strength went out of her as she fainted. Zelda lowered her onto her back carefully, slowly, so there would be no injury sustained. The princess went over her attendant with her eyes and her fingertips, checking her breathing, checking everything she could. Because Paya was all right. She had to stay all right.

"Kid!"

Liana's voice cut through the air, through everything. Zelda looked up. Saw her surroundings for the first time in minutes.

The four Gerudo had formed a very loose perimeter around her, weapons ready. Beyond them were the Yiga, nearly cloaked in shadow, masks throwing light so that they were like disparately arranged teeth floating in the dark. Zelda did not know how many there were; they seemed to fade in and out of the shadows as she stared at them.

There was a heavy sound of many dozens of weapons being drawn simultaneously.

Whatever had arrested the Yiga before now, whatever it was that had held them back, that influence was gone.

"All four of you get close to me," Zelda said. Barta moved back almost before the words were out of her mouth, resting one hand on Zelda's shoulder. "Either lay a hand on me directly or lay one on each other."

The Yiga pressed in closer, so close that Zelda could see the blue light of her armor reflected in their polished masks.

Zelda took the sheikah slate in her hands, keyed in a command—with a delay. Returned the slate to her hip.

The amnesiac princess put one arm behind Paya's back, and the other beneath her thighs, and lifted her from the ground. She rose, as the four Gerudo guards pressed in. Liana and Kotta still had their weapons trained on the advancing, silent horde, which gave no impression stronger than that of a mouth full of teeth slowly biting shut.

The fortress shook, the earth heaving underneath their feet. Zelda nearly grabbed the power to determine what could have caused such a thing—but the roar that followed the shaking, the sound of an explosive rage bellowing from a chest the size of a nation, made it obvious.

Zelda looked out to the Yiga, who had hesitated at the shaking, at the sound.

She said to them, "All of you who can run… do so. Your master will not discriminate."

The slate activated. A blue light engulfed the six women, they dissolved into strings of radiance, and then they were gone, spirited away from that place of shadow and steel.

* * *

 ** _AUTHOR'S NOTE_** **:** I'm trying to keep my pace up. See you all next chapter, which will hopefully be soon!


	38. Catastrophe

The desert shook as the earth rumbled, sands dancing in the air like ripples on a puddle of water. Gerudo Town was not spared this; every woman, be they Gerudo or not, stopped whatever they were doing and looked up, at the walls or the sky or each other or at nothing. The earth did not _shake_ in the desert. Death Mountain's anger never disturbed the sands. Even the Bleeding Earth did not rattle the walls of Gerudo Town, from which sand now fell in streams as panicked guards looked on.

Streams of blue light fed quietly together in front of the shrine next to the town's entrance, coalescing into a group of six women, one of whom was unconscious in the second's arms and the other four of whom nearly collapsed in shock and panic at the sudden change in their surroundings. Liana recovered first and most fully, not stepping off of the dais in front of the shrine, but she turned her wide eyes toward Zelda and looked, _really_ looked, at the Hylian girl for the first time.

Zelda looked back up at the sergeant. She hoped she appeared calmer than she felt. Holding Paya in this position was _hard_ , and her shoulders were screaming. Was there a better way to carry her? One more comfortable? Would this hurt Paya's neck? She should have asked. There hadn't been time. She—

The rumbling grew more insistent. Zelda and Liana and Kotta and Leena and Barta looked up as a second sun dawned to the northeast. The sun was black, and purple, and red, and the sky twisted around it as if the heavens were made of paint, and it was all the doom the world had ever known.

"Liana. _Sergeant Liana!_ " At Zelda's words, Liana turned to her. Zelda gestured with her shoulders. "Please."

Liana took Paya from her. In the larger woman's arms, Paya seemed no bigger than a sleeping child.

The new sun rose higher into the sky, which whirled around it. Clouds had begun to coalesce from nowhere, and they were the color of blood.

"Tell everyone to get inside! Tell them—I don't know what to tell them! There's going to be debris! If they're not inside, they're going to be killed!"

Liana nodded. Her squad now stood, looking between Zelda and her, as the sergeant's experience in command, her calm, asserted themselves. "That will be enough to tell them, I think. How bad will it be?" _Will taking shelter actually help?_

 _"_ I don't know. I'll try to stop the worst of it. I don't—"

Shadows fell as the golden light of the true Sun was blocked out. All the gathered women—and all those in Gerudo town—looked up simultaneously yet again. The new body moving across the sky was streaking toward the canyon to the northeast, leaving a tail of fire behind it. In Zelda's eyes, it was as far removed from the Calamity's previous attacks on her as the Blights were from Ganon itself.

"I have to go," she said. How was she going to go? The Sheikah Sensor had said there was a shrine on the way into the Yiga Fortress, but she'd never actually found it. What could she do?

 _Distance doesn't mean anything. It's like Impa told me. Stop thinking of the world in terms of what you can't do. Push at the boundaries of what you_ can.

She shrouded herself in the power, infused her thoughts with it. The amnesiac oracle reached out with her mind, and the physical space in front of her, around her, was as nothing. She was at the gates of Gerudo Town, but she was also in the canyon. The shrine sat beneath the earth. A pedestal near it yearned for stone. For light.

With her thoughts she touched one of the luminous stones she carried. With her thoughts she touched the pedestal. Blue light poured from it, and the shaking sands shifted more firmly as the shrine rose out of the ground.

With her thoughts she activated the Sheikah Slate. This—this was harder. She reached out for the activation console on the front of the shrine and she could feel her control slipping.

 _What is happening? Why is this harder? Is it that I am transferring the energy of the slate? Is acting as a conduit for information somehow more trying than simply touching something? Or,_ and here she realized she was touching on the truth, _am I so used to the physical elements of this action that working against it is working actively against my understanding? It's harder because I'm making it be harder. Curious._

The thought allowed her to bridge the gap. Kilometers away the shrine was activated. In her hands the Sheikah Slate lit up with confirmation that the new shrine had been registered.

 _Can I do this for all of the remaining shrines, too?_

The thought slipped away from her. She keyed in her destination as the ground threatened to heave.

"Kid," Liana said. Zelda looked up at her. "Come back, all right?"

 _I don't know if I can. I have to, but you don't understand what's happening. No one understands._ I _don't understand. If that thing strikes home it is going to obliterate half of Hyrule, and even if I stop it then I think I am going to die._

"I will try," she said.

She hit the transfer button, dissolving into blue light.

The squad spent one moment longer looking at the shifting horizon, at the terror bearing toward the canyon on the edge of the desert.

"All right, enough!" Liana's voice snapped the other women—especially Barta—to attention. "You heard the girl. Raise the alarm! Tell everyone who can to take shelter. Barta, go to Buliara and ask if we should gather everyone in the barracks, since it's the sturdiest structure in the town. You think I'm talking for my health? _NOW!_ "

The three scattered. Liana shifted Paya in her arms, took one last glance at the sky, and trotted into town, bringing in the on-duty guards with her.

* * *

Minutes before the new sun dawned over the Gerudo desert, Link waited in the heart of the castle, at the edge of the world. Ganon gathered itself up, the Malice pooling together slowly, so slowly, and Link watched. He felt... drained. Had he been this drained the last time this had happened?

 _Was Impa here, just now?_

 _Was Zelda?_

The thought was there, and then gone. Forgotten. It had never been in his head at all.

The blade of the sword hummed and he watched as Ganon gathered itself. They had done this part before. They had done this part before—how many times, now? Many. Many times. He knew what would come next.

The pool of Malice became a pool of flames as Ganon rose up out of the shadow, the Calamity's golden eyes turned on the kneeling hero. Black fire played so strangely with the light, and Link's sight could not adjust to it no matter how many times he saw it. Still, he did not look away.

 _I will fight through this._

Ganon's silhouette shifted, and it lifted up an arm shaped like a person's, ending in a hand tipped with talons instead of fingers. Ganon held that hand aloft, and power began to gather in its palm.

 _I will endure._

Light and shadow gathered into an infinitesimal point, and the air around it began to writhe as if it were full of barely visible worms. The Malice's flames were pulled into that point, feeding it so that it grew with every moment. Beneath Link's boots, beneath his knee pressed into the pebble-strewn flooring, the earth began to quake. It was going to be a bad one.

 _I will hold out for her_.

The gathering became a maelstrom, and all of the latent energies floating in the air of that vast chamber gathered into Ganon's hand. Now the air _screamed_ , screamed in a voice like a human's as the heat and the pressure whipped it into a frenzy, and the violence of that conflagration would have driven Link to the ground if he'd been standing. Even now, the weight was nearly more than he could bear.

 _I will not fail_.

He closed his eyes, preparing for the pain.

Which did not come.

"Look at me," the Calamity whispered.

Link looked. The Calamity was smiling, its face a shadow with a slash of light the color of blood serving as its mouth, the grin wide and high and hideous.

"You see? Good."

The Calamity took all the power of the Bleeding Earth, all the energy that had been used to revive the dark beasts of the land and buffet the Hero to the edge of obliteration for a century, turned, and hurled it straight up.

Link could not react. He watched the power sail upward, streaking past the green light that formed an ever-present halo of calm above the battle, watched it begin to veer toward the southwest—and then blossom like a flower, like kindling catching fire. It grew from a single point, to a moon, to a sun.

All the power of the Bleeding Earth soared through the air, and Link could only stare up, eyes wide, his mind refusing to process what he had just let happen.

* * *

Zelda activated the shrine in the canyon, keyed in the location on the Sheikah Slate, dissolved into blue light, but she was not the only one moving to act.

High over Hyrule did destruction trace its wending arc, moving so slowly that it seemed to be relishing the signaling of its intent to the inhabitants of that land.

Red rays of light were focused on Hyrule Castle; as the projectile soared through the air, they swung up. One guiding beam shone from Death Mountain, and another from above Zora's Domain. The princess had not called upon her Champions, but they did not have to be called. They knew their duty.

Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania fired, and the light of their weapons put shame to the day.

The contact between the weapon of the Calamity and the weapons of the Divine Beasts flared, burning so bright that the western half of Hyrule Field was bathed in a white radiance that seared the eyes. People as far away as Lurelin Village saw the flare and instinctively shielded their eyes from it, though they could not know that the brightness was caused by the clashing of the holy and the profane.

The sound was like a forest fire as the weapons of the Divine Beasts, designed to drain the power of the Calamity itself, tore into their target. The grass of Hyrule Field was smashed flat in every direction for kilometers. Trees shook, toppled—and those nearest to the contact point simply exploded, shivering apart at the shift in air pressure. The energy of the Divine Beasts and the power of Ganon mutually annihilated each other, and in that clash Hyrule witnessed a preview of the battle to come.

The brightness faded as Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania's assaults were exhausted, the beams of light dwindling and then disappearing.

One could be forgiven for expecting that it would have been blown apart, but it persisted. In the light of day, as the people of Hyrule looked to the sky again, the power of the Calamity remained in the air.

All the power of two Divine Beasts had reduced its magnitude by less than half.

* * *

The light of Hylia's power was in Zelda when she appeared in front of the shrine. She ran, propelled by a god's strength, clambering up walls with an alacrity she would have marveled at if she'd had time to pay attention to it. She ran above the canyon, feet too sure to slip on stone. She was gasping for breath as she ran, she'd already done so much in the past hour that her body and her mind wanted to collapse, to sleep, to _stop_ , but she couldn't. Not yet.

She'd only watched the projectile for a few moments outside of Gerudo Town, not enough time to accurately estimate the point of impact, but she didn't need to guess. She'd been standing in one room when she faced the Calamity: she'd still be in that room when she'd seen Paya and ( _don't think about him think about_ now _don't think about him_ ) and the Calamity, had seen that conflict ended and begun again. There was no room for ambiguity. The Calamity had released a weapon like nothing the continent had ever seen, and it was bearing down on her now.

Well. In truth, it was bearing down on the hideout of the Yiga.

She could only guess at the magnitude of the destruction it would cause. A full eruption of Death Mountain might be comparable, perhaps—but then, perhaps even that cataclysm wouldn't quite compare. The flood promised by Vah Ruta might have been as catastrophic in terms of loss of life. Or would this still be worse? Would it spread the Malice? How _far_ would it spread the Malice, if it did? She couldn't tell.

 _I can intuit it. The goddess can feel these things._ I _can feel these things_. She didn't like that, didn't like the leap over logic necessary, but it was true: as surely as if she were looking into the future, Zelda could see the truth of the impact: a pillar of fire and death extending for kilometers into the air, a storm that would swallow the continent and leave so many dead that the survivors would not last for much longer than those who had passed in the initial wave. All of Ganon's fury unleashed.

Zelda came to the edge of the clearing where she had fought Kohga. Looking down, she could see the places where sand and stone had been scorched in their battle, where Kohga had held some sliver of the Calamity and thought himself its true scion.

 _Wait. Where_ is _Koh—_

No. No. Push it down. Put it away. Come back to it later, if necessary. Not now. She knew where Kohga was. Not now.

She cast her eyes up.

 _It... it looks angrier_.

She had felt it when the Divine Beasts had fired, even as she was transported by the Sheikah Slate. She knew that the Calamity's weapon had persisted, had _not_ been turned away or destroyed. It had been reduced, but if anything what remained was more intense, brighter, hotter. In another time, another life, a blood-colored moon would have looked like this.

The fireball took up half her field of vision, now, its surface rippling and hissing and spitting, part flame and part boiling liquid, blacks and red and purples dancing together on its surface. The sky was spiraling behind it, clouds forming a pattern like a whirlpool. It pulled at the heavens as it descended. Its sheer enormity, its unspeakable _power_ , made her shake. What was she, to stand before this and defy it? She was a child, still. Nothing more than a child.

"A child can fight," she said to the empty air, and she grabbed hold of all of Hylia's power that she could muster. That was not the entirety of it—perhaps she would never be able to hold the entirety again—but it was _so much_. Every time she did this it got easier. Was this more than she had held when protecting the guards from Ganon's assault? More than when she had reached for Paya? Surely it was.

Distance meant nothing. She left behind the confines of her body, reaching out with the power more easily than with her hand. A golden radiance filled the canyon, extending outward toward the descending catastrophe. With her power she brushed against it. She braced herself. She _heaved_.

Blood vessels beneath her fingernails and the corners of her mouth ruptured, and huge bruises pooled in her hands and face. The pressure pushed at the inside of her eyeballs, and she squeezed them shut for fear that they would launch burst of her head or explode. Her joints screamed as the connective tissues began to tear, and her limbs shook with the sympathetic strain of holding up the power. Her muscles were shredding. She was dying. She was dying on her feet and she'd only been doing this for seconds, how could she _possibly—_

Hylia's power winked out, the tether breaking as if to save her life. Zelda fell to her knees. Her ears were ringing.

She tried to flex her hands, but her fingers were so swollen and discolored she could barely move them. Probably her face was in similar shape. Blood was dripping from the end of her nose. Had her sinuses starting bleeding, too? Her eyes?

 _All I did was try to push it back. I'm supposed to be able to stop things like this_.

She looked up again. Ganon's attack was so close now that it was hard to tell that it was drawing closer. She couldn't hear it, though ( _did my eardrums burst?_ ). It was so big. She was so small.

 _It is not that the power is small. Hylia could stop this, even if it destroyed her to do so. I can't. I am the point of failure, here_.

There was no time for moping. No time to reflect. She had to try again. She had to grab hold of more of the power—it was easier every time, wasn't it?—and try again. And if she failed, she would die here, but at least she would have tried. That was the intuition of the goddess. That was the belief of the princess.

But the amnesiac was a realist. She was not like the Hero, fighting against the end of the world by himself for a century. She could never be like him, who stood dauntless against tortures and destruction. She couldn't do what he did. This she knew, with all the surety of the ignorant and the untested.

"I can't do this alone," she said.

The air shifted. Something changed, outside the bounds of her power.

A gentle coolness brushed against her left cheek, spreading across her head, down her neck and her chest and her arms and her legs. The swelling in her joints eased, and her pain disappeared, and the ringing in her ears faded.

She turned her head. Mipha, surrounded by the ghost fires, was next to her, golden eyes soft and solemn.

The dead princess said, "You are never alone."

A hand as heavy as a boulder rested gently against her back. She did not need to turn to know it was Daruk.

"Come on, little princess," the late leader of the Gorons said. "Let's do this. Together."

She got to her feet. Looked between the two Champions. Tried to process how easy their expressions were, how unworried they seemed. Daruk was pulling at his beard, but this was a sign of his amusement, not nervousness.

"I'm sorry," she said. She wasn't sure what she was apologizing for.

"None of that, none of that." Daruk waved his hand as if to dismiss the words. "Come on. Will you let us help you?"

"Please."

"Good. I want you to channel as much of your power as you can. Channel it until you think you're going to erupt."

Why was it easier with Daruk there? Why was it easier, with Mipha's hand resting on her forearm, anchoring her?

The golden light made the Calamity's hate seem even darker. Radiance filled the canyon, filled everything, as if it were a physical presence. The sound was like the chiming of a bell.

"Just like that! Now, I'm going to guide you a little bit. You probably know where this is going, so I'm not going to tell you every little thing, but I want you to mind your fundamentals. Your stance is wrong!" He reached over, tapped on her knee with one enormous finger. "Spread your feet further apart. Keep your knees flexible and your weight on your heels. Good. Now draw your elbows in against your side. Clench your fists. Forearms and wrists facing the sky. Your upper body needs to be tight as a knot and ready to catch a boulder. Are you ready?"

 _I can't be ready for this_. "As ready as I can be."

"Good! I'm going to help guide you, OK? Real gentle. Don't worry too much. It'll be just like when we fought the Blight. I'll bolster you as best I can."

Mipha was now behind her, placing both hands on Zelda's shoulders. "And I will brace you." Mipha's determined tone was so strange, so alien, that for a moment Zelda wasn't sure she was reading her voice correctly. "No matter what happens... I will protect you."

Zelda closed her eyes. Nodded. Breathed. Reached out to Daruk and to Mipha. Felt them bolstering her.

She took the power in hand, and Daruk guided her ever so slightly.

Stance sure and level, Daruk and Zelda thrust out their arms at the death bearing down on them.

There was a flash of gold, a roar of Malice—and then a spreading sheen of crystalline red as the entire fireball was encircled, entrapped, within a colossal sphere of Daruk's Protection.

 _We can't stop it_ , she thought. _Our only hope is to contain it_.

There would be no hope for the Yiga who were still in the fortress. There might not be any hope for her. She couldn't think about that. She couldn't think about any of it.

Death bore down on them, sheathed in glimmering crimson. Zelda and her champions held.

* * *

From Kara Kara Bazaar one had a clear view of the impact. Standing atop the tower there, one could see as the strange orb was suddenly sheathed in red light that looked like glass, as its slow and lazy descent came to an end.

It touched down in the canyon, and the earth shook so violently that it was felt all over the desert. It did not stop when it struck the earth; it kept sinking, kept grinding down. The orb was nearly the size of a Divine Beast, and as it twisted and pushed at the stone of the canyon it sent enormous plumes of stone and dust into the sky, obscuring it behind undulating clouds that were whipped away by a buffeting wind before being replaced by a fresh curtain.

It sank, and it sank, displacing the earth beneath it. A golden light shone before it, defying it, but that light seemed very small from the distance of the bazaar. One could not hear the ringing of a bell; one could only hear the land groaning in its agonies.

Finally, after an interminable length of time, after the crystalline orb had buried half its mass in the stone of that canyon and the surrounding mountain, it stopped. The earth ceased to shake.

For one long moment, the world was still and silent, holding its breath in anticipation.

Then, at last, Ganon's weapon erupted.

* * *

The pressure inside of the barrier of Daruk's Protection was indescribable. Maintaining it would have killed Zelda if Mipha wasn't healing her in every moment; as it was, she could see a red mist rising from her skin, as if her blood was seeping through her pores and then vaporizing. Perhaps that _was_ happening. Certainly it felt that way.

"More!" Daruk's voice was strained, though he was not shackled by the limits of a body. He was putting forth as great an effort as she was. "If we can't hold it inside of one, then we'll use _more_!"

Zelda and Daruk flexed the power of the Protection again, and a second barrier was layered on top of the first, and a third on top of the second, and it still wasn't enough.

The light of Ganon's power erupting inside of the barrier had effectively blinded her, and she heard Daruk and Mipha's voices in her thoughts because the roar of the fireball exploding was like a lightning bolt striking her eardrums, constantly and without ceasing. The triple-layered Protection shone brighter than the true Sun, barely containing the maelstrom inside of it.

In that space apart from the physical world, Zelda could feel Ganon's fury contained within the sphere. Vast, terrible, inexhaustible. The Divine Beasts had reduced it, but in response it had drawn into itself, become even more intense. She would not be able to hold it. She had to hold it.

The innermost layer of the Protection cracked. Zelda staggered. Mipha's arms were wrapped around her diaphragm, now, the healing light pouring into her.

 _Think. Think!_

She didn't have to think for long before she came to a conclusion.

"It's not stopping," she said to Daruk. She did not shout; she wouldn't be heard anyway, not with her voice, and so she spoke directly to the Champion's mind. "I don't think it's going to stop."

"You're probably right," Daruk said. He sounded so calm, in the middle of all of this. "We can hold it for a while longer, I think. Not very much longer, but—"

There was a crack, and the first layer of the Protection shattered completely. Ganon's magic smashed into the second layer, clawing at it in a thousand million places, digging gouges in what should have been an impenetrable, immaculate barrier. That layer held, though already the strain told on its surface.

"All right." Daruk sighed. "Not very much longer at _all_."

Mipha interjected: "What are our options?"

"They are dwindling," Zelda said. She cut her awareness off from her body when she realized what was happening to it. No point in subjecting herself to that, assuming the damage could be repaired. "Our success is predicated on being able to outlast this power, but I don't think that's possible. Maybe Hylia's power is as bottomless as Ganon's, but I am not a perfect channel for it."

"And that swine's attack is getting _more_ intense, rather than less." Beneath the disgust, Daruk sounded almost like he admired it. Well. Maybe there _was_ something to admire in the determination of such a horror.

"Precisely. So, we are left with fewer and fewer options."

"Princess." Mipha's voice was insistent again. "How bad will the effect be if the barrier shatters?"

The second layer cracked. Inside of the sphere there was a roar, as if the fireball was a living thing, as if it were a Blight to end all Blights.

" _When_ the barrier shatters," Zelda said, then regretted it. There was no need to be so morbid. "I don't know. Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania's attacks drained much of its energy, but the majority of that power still remains. Certainly it would kill me, with or without your power. I have to imagine it would spread Malice all over the country, cause seismic or even tectonic shifts. It." She sighed. "It's tempting to list off all the effects I believe it will have, but that's pointless. It would be equivalent to the Calamity being freed in that moment. Hyrule would come to an end."

There was silence between them, then. The crack in the second barrier grew, and grew, spreading across the surface like the break in a pane of glass.

After a long moment, Daruk said, "We have to choose how the shield breaks."

Zelda couldn't respond to this.

"I know, I know, but listen. It's _going_ to break. All that... stuff inside. It's going to get out. Right? We have to decide _how_ it gets out."

Zelda considered this, went through scenarios in her head. As much as the thing seemed to be alive, it was still fundamentally just an exotic form of radiant energy, no different from the attacks of the Divine Beasts. Could it be focused? How big did the break need to be? Would they be able to hold it? She tried to do the math in her head, found that it beggared her ability to estimate. She leveraged the goddess's thoughts at it, found that Hylia's ability to intuit the problem wasn't much better than her own.

"Yes. Yes, if we can direct it. We'll need to purposefully open a part of the shield. If we wait for the shield to break under pressure then the opening will be too great a structural weakness that will tear it all to pieces. We'll have to maintain the edge of the opening even more fiercely than the rest. If we direct it straight down... but, no. Maybe straight up, into the sky..."

The second barrier shattered. The third groaned. Zelda staggered, dragged back down into her body. Oh, that hurt enormously, with or without Mipha's help.

"Little Princess! You have to decide _now!_ "

Zelda thought again, visualizing the Sheikah Slate's map of the region.

"Please help me do this," she said.

Daruk was beside her. Mipha was behind her.

She opened one side of the barrier, just enough, pointing west and slightly upward.

The world vanished in light.

* * *

Imagine an egg cracking open. Imagine a worm, its diameter as great or greater than the egg, its body made of black and purple and red light, emerging from the shell. This worm heads in a straight line, its surface loose and wavy as if covered in a carpet of flames, and anything that it touches ceases utterly to exist. It moves forward, inexorable, burrowing through air and stone and space itself, leaving obliteration in its wake. It stretches on, and on, and on.

The Yiga Fortress was obliterated in an instant, swept away as if it had never been built, becoming dust and then less than dust as the detritus burned away to nothing. No survivors among the Yiga would ever be found.

The gouge that the eruption of Ganon's power carved started in that place, but it grew wider and deeper as it went. The canyon was scooped out, bored open, turned into something far vaster, far smoother. Mountains shattered, crumbling to nothing, vanishing from sight and from history.

The trajectory of the blast, the arc of the ray of destructive light, was high enough that it did not strike the sea. It went up, hurtling into the distance, piercing the sky, lashing out at the heavens. The old gods, it might be hoped, would better be able to withstand the onslaught.

Death Mountain wailed, on the edge of eruption, and only by luck did it hold.

Zora's Domain hung suspended, and all around it the mountains trembled as the people of the domain stared, unbelieving.

The Hero stared up at the heavens as the sky flashed in purples and reds and black and blues.

The Calamity howled with laughter.

The worm did not dwindle. It went on, rushing into the sky, disappearing from sight.

In its wake the northern end of the Gerudo desert looked like Ploymus Mountain's peak on a much larger scale. A trench had been dug, a new canyon larger than the Breach of Demise, and its walls were made of runny, dripping glass. This canyon ran nearly to the sea, and anything that had previously stood in its way, stone or sand or building or mountain, had been lifted up and obliterated in the rush of power. Firestorms burned above it and around it as the air rushed in to fill the vacuum and ignited in the heat, lightning dancing in the smoke.

A mote of golden light flitted away from the carnage.

* * *

Link did not have the awareness of a god. He could not reach out with his thoughts and feel the world as intimately as his own body; he was limited to what he could see with his eyes, hear with his ears, touch with his hands. His senses did not extend beyond the pit in which he'd been fighting the Calamity, save for those rare times—like now—that he cast his eyes up and saw the world beyond that battle.

Why, then, did he understand what had just happened?

Not the details. He didn't know the specifics of what had just transpired. But he knew, he _knew_ because it echoed inside of his bones and bounced around the inside of his skull, that what Ganon had just done had been aimed at Zelda. That it had hurt her, even if it hadn't killed her. That Link's expectations had been used against him, creating a vulnerability, an _opportunity_ , where there should not have been one.

He had done this.

He had failed.

"Do you see now?"

He tore his eyes from the sky. Shame was mighty; duty was mightier still.

"Are you beginning to understand?"

The Calamity was taking on a more solid shape again. Something very much like a man made of shadows, holding a sword made of obsidian, with a mane of red fire for hair. Its eyes shone from within the darkness of its silhouette, and when it smiled its teeth were a forest of knives.

"For so long I have been treating poorly with you, and you have grown complacent. We fight. You cut me down. You _rest_. I turn my power against you as you rest. You survive it. You rise. We fight. You cut me down."

Link hauled himself to his feet. He could not feel his own exhaustion. His body was a distant thing. The world outside was a distant thing.

 _I cannot think about Zelda_.

"No longer will you be allowed to _rest_." The last word was a hiss. "No more shall you be given reprieve. Do you think you can hold me until your princess comes for you? Until you are _saved_? Then we will test that." The obsidian sword came up, tip pointed at Link's chest. Darkness flowed off of it, like smoke that could not be seen through. "How long can you hold out, boy? I wonder."

 _I cannot think about anything._

He did not will himself to move. His body launched itself forward of its own accord. The Master Sword traced an arc in his hands.

The dark blade met it. Thunder roared. He pushed with all the strength in his body, and Ganon pushed back.

 _I have to fight_.

He had faltered, yes, but Zelda still lived. Was still recovering. This he believed, because he had nothing else. The only thing he had _really_ done was create more pain. He would shoulder that pain. He would drink deep of it. He would fight Ganon until there was nothing left of him, until the world ground to a halt. Let the Calamity laugh. It wouldn't matter.

Steel rang on steel as both fighters slipped into ancient patterns, moving faster and faster until they were nearly invisible, blurs that birthed lightning bolts where their swords clashed.

 _I will hold out._

 _I will not fail_.

But Ganon was laughing, and laughing, and laughing.

* * *

How long had she been sleeping? Had she been dreaming?

Zelda drifted through the dark.

 _No. I have done this before_.

"Zelda!" A voice, distant and insistent and pained and terrible.

 _I am so tired._

She drifted in that infinite blackness where souls could touch souls, where she had communed with the goddess, where the awareness of Hylia and the needs of Hyrule had pulled her up out of a dreamlessness born of wounds and healing. To drift was easy. It was comfortable. It was to exist without effort. That's what she wanted, right then. Just to exist without having to try. Was that so wrong?

" _ZELDA!_ "

Mipha's voice shattered the darkness. The coolness of Mipha's touch spread through her, but there was a layer of removal from it. Insulation.

 _Is that death? I think it might be death. Real death. True death. Death she couldn't bring me back from_.

Don't begrudge her that thought. To accept death calmly, even when others still need them, is the exclusive but inalienable privilege of the dying. And dying she was, and she knew it. Nothing betrayed that so much as the desperation of the Zora princess, the way that the soothing coolness turned to ice that was poured over her entire awareness.

Zelda seized there, in the dark, and the cold would not let her die.

"Zelda, wake up! Please! Please, wake up!"

 _I am so tired. I just want to rest._

"You can't. Please, Zelda, you _can't!_ You haven't saved him yet!"

Him?

Link.

 _Link._

"Yes! Link! He's still waiting for you! He's still fighting!"

 _No. I can't think about him. It hurts_.

"Then _hurt!_ "

Ice was jammed into her thoughts, cutting her off from death.

Mipha's memories crashed into her, and she was crushed beneath the glacier.

Link fought Ganon, again and again. A hundred times. A thousand times. _Thousands_ of times. She saw him. Saw the Master Sword in his hand. Saw the blood that ran from him. Saw him rise. Fall. Strike down the Calamity. Saw his pain. Heard his screaming. Again, and again, and again. She couldn't look away. Was this what Mipha had seen? What she was forcing her to see now? She tried to push the images away and didn't have the strength. She saw Link fighting and suffering and the way that he had fought for her, for _her_ , for a century, and she had been trying to compartmentalize all of that and he was _still fighting_ , even in that moment, even as she wanted to accept death, and the darkness that pressed in on her from all sides and the ice that had pinned her to life were both blown away by a fire ignited in her thoughts and Zelda began to scream.

Then, all at once, it was gone.

The ice was replaced by gentle coolness. The darkness of death had pulled away.

Zelda was aware of herself, floating in the vast expanse of that spirit plane.

She was also aware of the ghost of Mipha, clinging desperately to her, weeping. Not the pretty, restrained tears of someone who was grieving and bearing that burden, but the wailing of a person who had lost the world and was afraid of losing still more, of losing every part of herself that had ever been.

Without thinking, moving slowly because she could not move quickly, she put her arms around Mipha.

"I'm sorry," she said. How many times had she said that? Today alone, even?

Mipha choked out words around her sobs: " _You don't have time to be sorry!_ " She swallowed audibly. "He still needs you. He _needs_ you! He—" Mipha's grip tightened, and in that bodiless space Zelda could still feel the sharpness of her talons. When the dead princess spoke again, she was calmer. Somehow, that made her sound even worse. "You have to live. You have to fight. For the world. For him. Do you understand?"

Zelda could not answer. She was brushing up against something inside of Mipha, against an enormity that eclipsed the pain and sorrow of any normal mortal life.

Mipha shuddered, and when she spoke again her voice was level, as if nothing had been wrong. "You have been trying to avoid thinking about the enormity of what he's done for us, for you, because it pains you. You can't do that, Princess. It is a terrible burden, but the world is not kind, and we cannot choose the ones we wish to bear. He bears his. We bear ours. You bear yours. If we do it just a little longer... just for a while... we can be free. _He_ can be free."

Silence.

Silence, stretching out.

Silence, stretching on forever.

Then Zelda said, "Yes. Of course. We must also bear the burdens of those who suffer on our behalf." The pain meant that she was no longer dying. The pain was something Mipha's power couldn't touch. "That is what the world needs of me, isn't it? What Paya needs of me. What Link needs of me. What the Champions need of me."

Mipha nodded against her.

"I can do that," she said. "I have to do that. How else to answer the hearts of the people you love?"

Mipha sighed in relief, and then was gone.

The dark was gone.

Princess Zelda opened her eyes, found herself staring up at the sky. Around her was the deserted square of Gerudo Town.


	39. The Thunder Helm

Zelda had only spent minutes trying to stop the Calamity's attack when she lost consciousness; based on the length of the shadows, however, she had spent several hours recovering before resuming her corporeal form. The afternoon was winding on. Women were trickling out of the homes in which they'd taken shelter—those who had stopped in the barracks would probably take longer. That made sense. They'd had no warning that the Calamity was striking until it had already happened. To trust the assumed safety of their ordinary lives must have been an uneasy prospect. Or would be. People wouldn't be adjusting already. She had to look around only a little to confirm this: those who were out were mostly Gerudo, and of those primarily shop owners who were checking on the condition of their wares.

The fallout of the blast hadn't been as bad as Zelda had expected. The desert had been littered with debris, but in Gerudo Town it had mostly been a hail of pebbles. Enough to hurt, yes, and there were broken signs and cracked tiles all over the square, but word had come in time; whatever injuries had been sustained were, hopefully, quite minor. Gerudo Town had been spared the worst of things. She wondered about Kara Kara Bazaar, further removed from ground zero but less fortified. Certainly everything to the west—well, everything to the west of the impact no longer existed. But there had been no settlements in the path of the blast. No shrines, either.

 _Certainly there had been some Yiga_.

The thought was unbidden, and her first instinct was to push it away. Instead she picked it up, turned it over in her mind, and decided that the death of the Yiga did bother her... but she was relieved, too. Relieved that they were no longer trying to kill her. Relieved that it would be a burden off of Paya's mind. Relieved that Ganon no longer had another avenue by which to exercise its power.

 _Am I relieved that I am not grieving over the loss of so many lives? That I'm not even trying to rationalize how they all would have died anyway, no matter what else I did?_

No answer was forthcoming. Fine. She'd carry that around with her for as long as she needed to.

A crowd of people was gathered in the training yard outside of the palace; hundreds of women had turned the act of taking shelter in an emergency into a community event, and fires had been built and pots set to simmering with foods that smelled of rich, savory spices. Zelda was hungry, and the promise of good food and good company pulled at her—more so when an older woman spotted her, decided she looked hungry, and tried to wave her down with a wooden spoon—but something else pulled more insistently. She moved through the crowd, and the crowd generally paid her little mind. That was good. Being lost in a crowd could be a good thing, she'd decided, and being alone in a crowd was a good thing in a different way.

She stepped into the barracks. Here the off-duty guards of Gerudo Town were gathered, a smattering of them running about the place and gathering food for the impromptu feast being held outside, but most trying to relax in the wake of whatever great work had been placed on them in the last few hours. They looked exhausted, Zelda thought, and for these women that was saying quite a lot. A large ring of spectators were gathered, the ones closer in sitting on the floor and the ones further out standing, as two guards—Leena and Kotta—were telling a story in the center, accompanied by very expressive body language.

"So in front of us the crowd is churning, and Kotta has used the poor Blizzard Rod so much it has nearly shattered—"

Scattered laughter as Kotta pantomimed hitting the rod against her hand, and even eyeballing the tip of it to make sure it was still working. Whatever reprimand they'd been expecting was not enough to take away from the glory of the work they'd done. Good.

"And behind me I hear this sound, like cutting open a piece of fruit. I turn around and I see the little silver-haired vai, and she moves!" Leena gestured with her fingertips instead of her whole arms, indicating an alacrity that she wouldn't be able to mimic. "Like no one you've ever seen! And the monster she's fighting, the beast in the shape of a vai," and on it went as Leena described the fight that Paya had been waging in the middle of the chaos.

Absorbed in the telling of the story, Leena did not notice one person passing through on the edge of the room, but Zelda caught Kotta's eye. The two of them exchanged glances, and the guard winked and then jerked her head in the direction of one of the doors. Zelda bowed her thanks and continued on, leaving the storytellers to their story and the victors to their victory.

The barracks infirmary was empty, save for Paya, who was sitting up in a bed, and a single guard who was standing a listless watch within arm's reach. When Zelda stepped in Paya was reading her diary, but at the sound of Zelda's heel touching the flooring her head whipped up and her eyes shone. Almost instantly the guard's hand came down and pressed on Paya's shoulder. Paya blushed furiously, tried to give the guard a reproachful look, failed. So, instead, Zelda came to her.

"Zelda," Paya said, and hearing her speak plainly and openly in her own voice made Zelda's throat tighten in a way she hadn't been expecting, "I am so very glad you've made it back safely." She was speaking formally, defaulting to that mode because there was someone else present. "U-under Chief Riju's orders, I've been confined to bed until I am cleared by an appropriate authority."

There was a chair near Paya's bed; Zelda pulled it up, took a seat in it. "Who would qualify as an appropriate authority?"

"She didn't say! But now there's a guard posted, and I can't..." She shook her head. "It is difficult to convince someone of your health when they will not examine you for injuries."

Zelda thought on that. "I would be willing to wager that they gave you a thorough physical examination while you were unconscious. If they have you confined to bed, it is for some other reason." She could think of a few, offhand, but did not want to hazard a guess.

Then Paya did it for her: "Is it... is it because of what happened?"

Silence between them, silence made sharper and more oppressive by the expressionless guard standing watch over them.

 _We need to talk. We can't do it like this_.

"Please pardon my foolish question," Zelda said to the guard in Gerudo, "but do I need to seek permission from the honored Chief Riju to speak to my friend in private?"

The guard turned toward Zelda, knit her brow, and then said in _startlingly_ comfortable-sounding Hylian, "I've been told to give the two of you as much time alone as you need, provided that Paya does not get out of bed."

"Oh." Zelda blinked, processed that, continued in Hylian. "I will make sure that she does not. You have my word."

"Good. I will be outside of the door. Please let me know when your visit is concluded." Without another word, she strode from the room, shutting the door behind her.

More silence as Zelda and Paya stared after her, at the shut door.

Paya said slowly, "Why would Chief Riju want us to have time alone if I am supposed to be under watch?"

"It is difficult to guess." Frankly, Zelda had no idea. "Is that your diary? Did you get it from the inn?"

"Oh! Oh, um, no." Paya's color had risen again, though it was difficult to tell if that was still frustration at having been ordered not to get out of bed. "I actually gave it to her. For safekeeping, when we went to the Yiga Fortress, in case... well, just in case. I told her it was full of very sensitive information and was to be delivered to my grandmother in the event that I could not do so myself, and stressed how important it was that she keep its confidence without reading it. So. She came to visit me, when she heard I was in the infirmary."

That was something—Riju must have heard of Paya's exploits from Liana's squad. "Did she visit for long?"

"I-I don't know, actually. She was here when I woke up. She seemed very agitated." Paya looked down at her hands. "I suppose she would be, with how frightened everyone else seemed. But she was happy to see me awake, I thought, and before she left she said something to me in Gerudo. Later, the guard translated for me: apparently it was something like, 'Do your best.'"

Zelda blinked again. "What an odd thing to say."

"I thought so, too."

More quiet. The silence was becoming a physical thing, threatening a wall between them. Zelda swept it aside:

"You think they might be confining you because of what happened in the Yiga hideout?"

Paya didn't look up. She didn't speak. She just nodded.

"Paya..."

"It's hard to talk about." Paya's voice wavered as she spoke. "All of it. The... everything."

There was a moment where Zelda considered opening herself, offering to simply let their minds touch and let things be communicated that way. There was another moment where she thought she should be gentle, and let Paya have her silence. There was dignity in silence, and she respected Paya enough to want to preserve that dignity at almost any cost.

But that word, "almost," was very important.

"I know it is difficult," Zelda said. "But I think we have to. There are some things we need to work out between the two of us. If talking about the events is hard, then focus on what it made you feel. On what you're thinking _now_."

Once more Paya spent a very long time turning this over in her mind. She set her diary down on her lap and began playing with her fingers, tracing her fingertips with the pads of her thumb, left pinky to right pinky and then back again. Calming herself while she thought. Concentrating while she talked.

"When Ganon had me," Paya said, eyes still locked on her hands, "I thought about how much I had failed. Some of that was the Calamity's influence on my thoughts, I am sure... but not very much of it. It used me as a," a long pause. "A weapon. Against you. Because I." The Sheikah girl's jaw clenched, the muscle standing out as she fought past this barrier. "Because I love you."

There. That was out, at least.

"It used that feeling to exploit me. It used how you answered that feeling to strike at you." Paya held up her right hand. She could not hold it still. "When it hit you, I felt it as if I'd struck the blow myself. I can still feel the sting. It's... sharper than memory is supposed to be. And then you came for me..."

Zelda said, "You didn't want me to come for you?"

Now, at last, Paya lifted her head.

"O-of course, I wanted to be rescued. I was so frightened. I have never felt anything like that, even in my worst nightmares—the vulnerability, the hopelessness."

Zelda nodded. It was remarkable how little she was feeling, now, knowing what Paya was about to say. An emotional shock, perhaps? A kind of spiritual insulation? It didn't matter. "Go on."

"I saw you on the horizon and... and Ganon told me how important I'd been in making you so vulnerable. How your heart couldn't help but answer the hearts of others. I-I saw you, and it was like looking at the goddess, and I thought how something so beautiful, so extraordinary, was in so much danger because of me." She lowered her eyes again. "What would have happened if Link hadn't been there?"

Ahhhh, yes, there. The hand clenching in her chest, that moment of reflection and realization that she wanted to shunt away but could not allow herself to. Mipha's words in her mind, Zelda said, "I knew he would be there. I... understood what Ganon was doing. Not totally. Just enough to know that it was near Link. I was betting on the Hero coming to our aid. I." Why was this familiar? She reached up, wiped at her eyes. "I used him."

That hung in the air between them, then Paya said, "Would you still have come after me if Link hadn't been there?"

 _We have hit a turning point._

 _You know what she's going to say—to do!—if you tell her the truth._

 _I cannot lie to her. Not about anything, and not about this._

"Yes," she said, because it was true.

The shaking in Paya's hands because more pronounced, but her face was remarkably controlled as she turned it back down to her lap. Not a twinge of expression. Her body quivered, once. She was holding her breath.

Zelda reached out, touched Paya's hand.

Paya pulled away.

Zelda sat back in her chair. Waited. Waited. Distantly, she realized she felt numb again.

"I cannot be a weakness for you," Paya said, the words coming out in a smooth, even rhythm. She sounded so calm. She must have been trying very hard. "I cannot. I would sooner be alone. I would sooner return to Kakariko Village in shame." Zelda could feel her about to say one more _I would sooner_ , but it was left mercifully unspoken.

Zelda was quiet for a long time. Waited for Paya to say anything else. Searched for anything else to say. Came up short on both counts.

Slowly, so slowly that only Paya's hearing would be sharp enough to detect it, she got out of her chair. She wasn't trying to be slow, or to sneak, or anything. She wasn't trying... anything. She hadn't consciously decided to get up and leave. She was just doing it. It was the thing to do.

"I'll let the guard know that we're finished," she said.

Then she was gone.

* * *

Riju shifted nervously back and forth. She was less nervous now than she'd been some minutes ago—the fear that Zelda had died in the blast to the north had been a very real one until she'd been spotted in the barracks—but now Riju was dealing with a different kind of nervousness.

She stood on the balcony outside of her room. She would have normally been in the audience room at this time of day, but today was not a usual one, and it helped for her to be able to look at her people and for her people to be able to look at her. The Thunder Helm was in her hands, and it seemed heavier than it had been before being stolen. That wasn't a _real_ thing, metal helmets didn't get heavier just from things happening _around_ them, but it _felt_ heavier. A number of very brave women had risked their lives to get it back. A much greater number of people had died trying to hold onto it. That made it heavy, right? That felt right.

She held it at level with her waist. Then at level with her heart. Down again. Up again. Looking out over the square, nobody would be able to see her hoisting the ancient relic of her people like a training weight, but anybody who stepped onto the balcony from the stairs _behind_ her would have a perfect view.

"What in the _world_ are you doing?" Buliara's question was somewhere between amused and genuinely, deeply perplexed.

"I am _trying_ ," Riju responded, "to find a pose that best communicates the dignity of my office and the gravity of the sacred treasure I'm holding." She fought the urge to fidget. "I would _appreciate_ some advice."

Buliara sighed. Riju looked over her shoulder, watched as the guard stepped away from her spot at the threshold of Riju's bedroom, and walked around the balcony to stand on the stairs—a bit further down than a relatively short visitor would be, to match the head height. Buliara could always be counted on to understand what was really important.

"Give me a moment," her guard said, and Buliara walked back up and disappeared into Riju's room. She came out with a plain dais, which Riju had been using for stacking books, and set it down next to where Riju still stood. "Put the Thunder Helm here."

Riju scowled. "Won't I be blocking it from view?"

"Only initially. Two steps after she first sees you, your guest will see the Thunder Helm behind you. The effect will be most striking."

Still scowling, Riju placed the Thunder Helm as instructed, rotating it so that its front faced the square below. Well, that _was_ a good effect.

"Excellent. Now clasp your hands. No, not in front of you. Clasping your hands in front of you is the posture of a guard at best and a supplicant at worst. It is for Hylian princesses, not for the chiefs of the Gerudo. _Behind_ you, under your braid. Do not interlace your fingers—wrap the fingers of your right hand loosely around your left fist. Relax both hands, you're showing strain in your forearms. Keep your shoulders back. Spine straight. Your hair will not hide your hands, so do not play with it."

Riju did as instructed. It was a stiff pose, and not one she could hold comfortably for very long, but she was reasonably sure that her guest would be arriving momentarily. "Like this?"

"Yes." Buliara sighed again; a wistful sound, this time. "You look every inch the chief. If only you had a few more inches."

Riju rolled her eyes but kept holding the pose. She had hoped to see her guest coming from the square, but the woman had been spotted leaving the infirmary in the barracks, which meant that she'd be coming in through a side entrance. All the guards had been instructed on where to direct the guest—though none of them knew who she actually was, this really _was_ going to turn into a conversation, wasn't it? But still. First impressions mattered. They were when one _impressed_.

 _This is definitely a second impression._

 _Second impressions also matter! They also matter a_ lot _._

Perhaps thirty seconds more passed before soft-heeled boots counted their way up the steps. Stride too short, steps too light, to be one of the guards. Riju relaxed her shoulders and looked down at the people in the square. There really was a lot to see; after a moment it was no longer an act.

"Chief Riju?" Zelda sounded tired, even in Gerudo. Little wonder, that.

Riju almost turned her head, almost spoke; instead she gestured, with a tilt of her neck, for Zelda to come stand beside her.

Zelda—the actual princess Zelda who had disappeared a hundred years ago, if there had ever been any doubt on that account—stepped up to the balcony. She held her hands in front of her, and looked down on the people in the square with soft, sad eyes. Not that her expression was sad. Her eyes were sad, as if that were their default state. Buliara would have said that hers were the kinds of eyes that could hide cunning.

"The Gerudo are all well," Riju said, finally breaking her silence. "You brought word in time. To say nothing of what you did in Karusa Valley."

Zelda hesitated. If Riju had to guess, the Hylian girl wasn't sure if she believed what she was being told—but on the other hand, she might have also been thinking about something else? Was Zelda _distracted_? "I am glad to hear that. Is _everyone_ well, truly?"

"Yes," Riju said. "We had one woman—an off-duty guard, and drunk nearly to blindness—who was struck on the head by a pebble the size of the last joint of her thumb. Luckily for her, she is as hard-headed as she is irresponsible, and required nothing more than stitches." She looked up at Zelda out of the corner of her eye. "There was damage, of course."

Zelda nodded, waiting for Riju to continue.

"Karusa Valley is gone. There is an area, beginning just to the east of the Yiga hideout and stretching out nearly to the sea, where nothing is left. It's been difficult to observe for the past several hours, but our best estimations say that everything north of the valley's mouth and everything south of Rutimala Hill no longer exists."

Saying that, it didn't sound like very much. An abstraction that you could mark down on a piece of paper. Riju, though, had stood on top of the water tower, had seen the firestorms and the lightning dancing there. There had never been any devastation like that wrought in Hyrule's history, she thought—if there had been, the land would still bear the scars. An entire people could vanish without a trace, blown away on the wind by such power.

Yes, she'd wanted to impress Zelda. Had been excited to talk to her, to hear about her adventures, to talk to her—well, to talk to her about Paya, yes. But now, speaking of the things that _really_ mattered—the things that should concern a chief, as Buliara might say—she felt some twinge of the same weight, the same sadness, that seemed to hang so heavily around the Hylian princess.

Zelda turned to her. Riju turned in answer, so the two stood squarely, eyes locked. For some reason, the weight of Zelda's eyes was alarming.

"Please forgive me for asking so rashly in light of the catastrophe that nearly befell your people," Zelda said, her earnestness demanding she speak in Hylian, "but I need your help."

"With reaching Vah Naboris, I assume." Riju allowed herself a tight smile when Zelda nodded in the affirmative. "Then it is well that you have returned the Thunder Helm to us. You do not need to ask—Vah Naboris, as it is now, is a threat to the Gerudo that must be addressed. And if, in addressing that threat, we might also address the threat of the Calamity... well. That is certainly worth one good fight, isn't it?"

Zelda nodded, looking duly impressed, which, good. Good, because it meant she couldn't see how frightened Riju was by the prospect of riding out into the desert. Not because of Vah Naboris, but because of Ganon.

Zelda bowed. "Thank you, Chief Riju. I look forward to working together in this."

Riju waved her hand. They'd reached the point in the conversation where dropping formalities would seem like a concession, even a favor, from her. Which was good, because she was getting tired. "We'll save that for when we are prepared to leave, I hope. Have you had time to visit your companion?"

"I have, thank you for asking. She is well." A pause. "May I ask why she is forbidden to get out of bed?"

 _Did you talk?!_

Riju replied, "The stories that Liana's squad told on their return were fraught. We could tell that she was not physically wounded when she was brought in, but we had to be sure that there no further complications arising from the trials she'd been through. In truth, I have only been waiting for your approval before releasing her."

Zelda nodded. "Thank you for being so concerned. She is well, and suffers no lasting effects."

"Wonderful. I will send word to have her released, then." _Right after I'm done talking to you_. "Will it be the three of us approaching Vah Naboris, then?"

"I do not believe Paya will be joining us, no."

"No? I suppose she would need rest, after what she went through."

Zelda's eyes cut away from Riju, looking back out toward the square as she said, "She may decide to return to Kakariko Village, now."

Riju was, distantly, very proud of herself for not shrieking. Behind her she heard the light jangle of her bodyguard's earrings as Buliara's head whipped around in surprise.

After half a beat of silence, Riju said, "Oh." Another beat, then, "That would be a shame, wouldn't it?" _WHAT ARE YOU DOING DON'T INTERFERE IN THIS_ , was that her internal voice or was it just what she thought Buliara would be screaming at her? Maybe both.

Zelda watched the people in the square. "Paya is a capable warrior, and she has been a stalwart companion during my journey, but she fears that her presence will be a greater danger than her absence, now. That she creates a vulnerability." The princess sighed softly. "May I speak plainly?"

 _Yes yes yes yes yes yes_ , "Of course. If we intend to face down the darkness in Vah Naboris together, then I think we should be friends. Please, relax, and feel free to say whatever is on your mind. I would happily be your confidant."

"I don't know what to do." All right, Riju hadn't expected her to speak _that_ plainly. Maybe vanishing for a hundred years made it so one _really_ meant it when they started to share their secrets. "I do not want to endanger her needlessly. I don't want to go against her wishes. I don't even know that I _disagree_ with her. She's thinks of herself as a vulnerability because—" Here Zelda paused.

"Because you are precious to her."

That made Zelda look at her again, eyes hard and analytical. "You are... _alarmingly_ observant."

 _Don't say Paya's like an open book don't say Paya's like an open book._ "By the same token, she is precious to you. Perhaps not in the same way as you are to her, but... is it possible that you want to protect her, too? That that is why you are thinking of sending her back?"

Zelda's face went through a startling number of expressions very rapidly as she processed what had just been said to her. Riju could almost hear the gears turning in her head. She wouldn't be replying for a _while_.

So instead, Riju continued. "Please, forgive me for being so forward. Still, I think it is worth considering _why_ both of you do or do not wish to travel together. Certainly it is not a decision to be made hastily. Anyone dear to us is a vulnerability, yes... but that vulnerability can be its own source of strength. Having someone to protect can make you stronger, _fiercer_ , than you thought yourself."

That was probably going too far. Still, when she really thought about what she was saying, she did agree with it: even if the protective instinct didn't make one _better_ , necessarily, it could help to have people near you that you cared about. History books were full of accounts of brave women who fought harder to protect those next to them, which was one of the reasons keeping squads together was such an important concept among the Gerudo armed forces.

"I'm sorry," Zelda said, and Riju snapped back to attention, "but it seems I've underestimated your insight."

Ah. Well. No point not sharing a little bit too, right? Paya had certainly shared enough with her. Unknowingly.

"Don't apologize. That's just something my mother used to say to me."

"You were close?" The gentle words of someone who had also lost her mother. Hyrule was not kind to mothers.

"So I'm told." She couldn't remember, of course.

Silence stretched out between them. Without prompting, both ended up facing the square again. It was soothing to see people going about their lives, laughing in the way they did in the wake of barely diverted disaster. One could divorce oneself from dangers to come, looking at them.

Maybe she should have been drawing strength from seeing her people, rather than using them as a distraction. Mm.

"I have found myself thinking of Urbosa," Zelda said. _That_ made Riju look up. Parts of Urbosa's diary had been recovered, but not all of it. There were gaps, but the Great Urbosa's intimacy with the queen of Hyrule was plain between every word. "It is funny. I was wounded a hundred years ago and lost my memory in the healing of those wounds—I should not have any feelings associated with her, yet think of her all the time. I can remember her in bits and pieces, now, as my memory comes back." A pause. "I think I loved her a very great deal. I could not say what she was to me, but I can say that."

Riju frowned. Well. Now they really _were_ sharing. "I think about her, too. Not as you do. Those thoughts I save for my mother. But Lady Urbosa, the _Great_ Urbosa... I think sometimes about the shadow she casts, still. Each chief after her has stood in that shadow, in her own way. If she'd lived in a different time, she would have been one of the Seven. I look out at Vah Naboris, some nights." She stopped, catching herself.

"Please," Zelda said. "If you're comfortable."

"I'm not," Riju said, because that was true, "but I'll try anyway. I like to go to the top of the water tower and look at the desert, at night. Seeing Vah Naboris raging for the past months has been... painful. I think of Urbosa. Even _she_ failed, and she was one of the greatest chiefs in our history. I am so..." She searched for a better word, found nothing. "I am so small, compared to her."

"I understand," Zelda said. Just that, just two words, but they were the truth. That meant a great deal.

Riju thought about how long she'd spent trying to craft an impression and felt... not silly, but bad. She'd done Zelda a disservice. And Paya. And herself, really.

"That is enough reflecting," Riju said. "Knowing our own smallness doesn't mean we can set aside our duties, does it?"

"No," Zelda agreed.

"Then we have to do these things for ourselves even if we don't think we can. Even if we have very spacious helmets to fill." She turned to the Thunder Helm, took it up in her hands. It was heavy, dazzlingly heavy, but in that weight there was power. The metal sang to her, beckoned to her, told her that so long as she held it then things would be all right. "My mother wore the Thunder Helm; so did her mother; so did the Great Urbosa. It's mine, whether I think I can handle it or not."

Without hesitating—because if she hesitated she was _not_ going to be able to go through with this—she put the helmet on, crossed her arms very authoritatively, and turned toward Zelda.

"Well? How do I look?"

The helmet slipped down. She sighed, pushed it back up into place. It was so big it was almost impossible to see out of without constantly adjusting it.

She almost missed the golden light shining from Zelda's eyes.

* * *

Prayer was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be the easiest thing in the world, and then through focus you made it into something more. Something grand. Something important.

Zelda was eight years old. In the two years since her mother had died she had, at her father's command, prayed and prayed and prayed. She had prayed until she couldn't think anymore. She had prayed until she had fallen asleep. She'd prayed without eating. She'd prayed without drinking water.

But prayer had never been easy. She didn't understand why it was supposed to be. Her mind was always full of thoughts, and memories, and what she wished she was doing instead. She tried to make the thoughts go away, but she never could. She always ended up thinking about something else. Maybe that was why the goddess hadn't spoken to her, yet. Maybe that was why.

"Zelda!" Urbosa's voice, calling from the shore of the Spring of Power.

Zelda raised her head to answer. "N-n-not yet!" She clamped down hard with her teeth, trying to stop them from chattering. "I haven't heard anything yet!"

She lowered her head again. She tried to ignore Urbosa, tried to ignore the cold and the uncomfortable way her ceremonial robe was sticking to her legs, making it feel like they were coated in ice. She tried to ignore how hungry she was. How bored. How many hours she'd been doing this—the sun had been up when she started, and it had been night for a while, now.

But she hadn't heard. So she tried to pray.

 _"_ Please, please," she whispered, "if anyone can hear me, please answer me. Any of the spirits. Any of the gods. Dinraal. Hylia." She hesitated. "M-mother."

The thoughts came back.

Urbosa was waiting for her on the shore.

Zelda had been in her room when Urbosa— _Lady_ Urbosa, she corrected herself, though Urbosa insisted that she not use a title when they were alone—had held an audience with her father. Nobody could be rude to the king regent. That was the rule, even if it wasn't a law. Maybe Urbosa hadn't been _rude_. But she had raised her voice, loud enough that everyone in the castle had heard it. She'd said things that Zelda didn't understand, muffled by distance and by stone, but she'd been _so_ angry. Zelda had spent long minutes thinking that Urbosa was angry with _her_ , angry with her failure, angry that she hadn't been allowed to come visit Gerudo Town because her power hadn't awoken yet. Her stomach had been twisted into knots while she sat on her bed, waiting for Urbosa to come in and tell her how angry she was, how she had to try harder—

But it hadn't happened that way. Urbosa had come in, stepping so softly, and sat on the bed next to her and put an arm around her and held her for a long, long time, and then said they'd be traveling together for a little while. No guards escorting Zelda to the springs this time. Just the two of them. The idea had made Zelda so happy it had scared her. Being that happy was... it was wrong, wasn't it? It felt wrong.

She'd been that happy for the days of travel, riding behind Urbosa on her big mare. They'd talked and talked and laughed and ate, and for a little while the whole world had gone away. But sometimes, when she thought Zelda wasn't paying attention, Urbosa would look at her and her face would be so sad. That reminded Zelda that she could not be completely happy. Once she was finished, then she could be happy. Then she could go be with Urbosa all she liked. This was just a small part of her life, a temporary thing, and it had to be put aside. But not yet.

Now, shivering under the waterfall that flowed into the spring, she felt... miserable. But it was a satisfied kind of miserable. This is how it was supposed to be. Cold, and trying to pray, and hungry, all meant that she was really trying. She was being the good, strong princess that Hyrule needed. This was the right thing.

So why wasn't anyone answering her?

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong," she said. Was this praying? It wasn't any of the prayers she'd been told to repeat, but those prayers didn't make sense and had been made up by people who weren't her mother. "I don't... I don't understand. I try, and I try, and nothing happens. Everyone in my family has been able to do this for _so long_. Mother and Grandmother could both talk to the voices from the spirit realm, and their mothers and grandmothers, and... and _everyone_. Through our whole history, everyone. But not me. I don't understand." She was shivering. "Mother, I don't under _stand_. You made everything sound so _easy_ , like it would just happen one day. Like you would show it to me one time and I would understand, but you never did and now I _can't_ , and I can't figure it out. What am I doing wrong? What am I—"

 _Maybe it's not something I'm doing._

She was very still, then. This felt important. Some deeper truth. Something to help, or at least let her know what was wrong. How to address it. She pursued the thought, chasing it wherever it saw fit to lead her.

 _If I'm praying like I'm supposed to, if I'm opening myself up to the gods and no one's answering..._

She was tired. So tired. The world shifted around her, just a little, and the night was filled with dark spots.

 _Maybe it's me. Maybe there's something wrong with_

There was water in her nose and mouth, and she tried to raise her head and gasp but there was no air and she couldn't breathe. She choked; thrashed, tried to find her way up, couldn't. She realized, calmly, that the water around here wasn't even that _deep_ , but now she was tangled in her robes. The dark spots were growing darker. She couldn't hear anything over the sound of her own thrashing.

Hands plunged into the water and grabbed hold of her and lifted her up, clear into the air. She was still choking—and then there was a pressure on her diaphragm, _hard_ , and she coughed so hard that she spewed water out like a fountain. She coughed again, breathed in a ragged gasp, coughed, then vomited. She was floating in the air, a heavy pressure on her stomach, and she watched the water fall from her mouth into the pool below. She breathed again, coughed, didn't have anything else to throw up, and started to cry.

Urbosa was holding her, then, pressing Zelda's head against her shoulder and stroking her back. "There. Ssshhhh. I've got you. It's all right."

"I can't—I have to—" Talking was hard, so hard she couldn't do it right. She wanted to object as Urbosa started wading back to shore—the depth of the pool didn't even come up to the Chief's knees—but the words wouldn't come out.

"No. That's enough for one night. No more talking, for now. Just breathe."

She wanted to object. She was supposed to be praying. If it hurt that meant she was doing it right. Suffering meant she was doing it _right_. If she didn't keep doing it right it wouldn't _work_.

But Urbosa's arms were firm, the curve of her shoulder was comfortable, and her skin was warm to the touch. Zelda wanted to argue, but couldn't. She held firmly onto the Chief, resting. Trying not to fall asleep. Trying not to think about how Urbosa had seen her throw up.

Urbosa brought her back to dry land, talking quietly and constantly to her in Gerudo, not any particular thing but little assurances that she would be all right, everything would be fine now. It took very little time to get camp set up—instead of making the fire by hand Urbosa blasted the kindling with lightning, which was exciting and much faster—and almost before she knew it Zelda was in dry clothes and a warm blanket, Urbosa seated next to her. She leaned against Urbosa's hip and watched the fire.

Both of them were quiet for a long, long time.

Zelda realized, after a while, that Urbosa was waiting for her to fall asleep. And she did need it. She was so tired. But she didn't want to yet. She could feel the disappointment in the air, the... the wrongness. She'd done badly again, hadn't managed to awaken to the powers she was supposed to have inherited. She'd just made another mess. It felt like that's all she'd been doing for... ever.

And now she'd have to tell her Father. How she'd come all this way, spent days traveling, inconvenienced an important diplomat, and prayed, and prayed, and... nothing. She could see his face now, the way he'd look at her with that same stony expression. How he'd just keep not smiling. Never smiling.

She breathed through her mouth, because her sinuses were clogged now. She felt it when Urbosa shifted to look down at her, but she couldn't hide it now.

"Zelda..." Urbosa said. No questions. No judgment. A warm hand on her shoulder.

"I can't," she hiccupped. She didn't know what words she was trying to say until they were tumbling out. "I can't tell him. I _can't_."

Thunder rumbled in the distance, like a promise. Urbosa's hand stroked her back. There were no questioning. No cajoling. No pressure.

"He's so _sad_ , Urbosa. He's been so sad ever since Mother died, and if I can't do this—if I can't do this then he'll never be happy anymore. And. And! The people in the castle, they see it too, and they don't. They."

Urbosa lifted her again, holding her tightly, but did not try to quiet her.

"They can all see I'm not good enough! They can all see it just like Father sees it, and I'm _supposed_ to be good enough but I'm _not_ , and." She had to fight for this, but it was true and getting the words out was as important as getting the water out of her lungs had been. "They can all see it. They can all see me. The things I can't do. I." She couldn't get it out. For some reason she thought it might be easier if she didn't use the words, if she didn't keep it in her own tongue. She pushed herself back from Urbosa's chest, looking up at the Chief of the Gerudo.

Urbosa was sad, too. It was not the same kind of sadness as Father, or the people in the castle. It was a _different_ kind, and that mattered. It had to matter.

Zelda said in her very formal, stilted Gerudo, "Why can I not do as the royal daughters of the past have done? What is wrong with me?"

Urbosa's mouth made a turn downward, forming deep creases on her cheeks while she squeezed her eyes shut. It was an expression Zelda had seen only once before, when she had taken Urbosa's hand at the funeral two years ago. She'd never forgotten that look. It hurt to see that look on Urbosa's face, to realize that she had been the cause of it, and now she had hurt Urbosa the same as she'd hurt everyone else.

She clutched hard to Urbosa, as if that would fix the hurt she'd done, as if she could undo the wound to Urbosa's heart.

"I'm sorry," she said, slipping back into Hylian. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, it's OK, everything will be all right. Please, Urbosa, don't—"

"Sssshhh." Urbosa's laid her broad hand against Zelda's head, forcing it gently down until the princess was resting on her shoulder. "No, my little bird. Do not be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for."

"But—"

"No more." For all the pain that had been in her face, Urbosa's tone was controlled, calm, soothing, as if nothing was wrong, and Zelda couldn't lift her head to check if that matched her expression. "No more, tonight. I will talk to your father. I will make sure that he is not upset with you." More thunder. "You are loved. Believe that, if you believe nothing else. Even if the gods are unkind, even if they are deaf to your wishes, you are loved. I will help you see this through."

Zelda thought to respond. Realized she was too tired. Nodded.

"Rest, little bird. You can lean on me for as long as you need."

Zelda rested. Held by Urbosa, seated in the light of a warm fire, she slept.

* * *

The feeling that Zelda carried up out of her memory, as she returned to herself, was not the shame of that lonely child from so long ago; she'd had quite enough of carrying shame for something that was no longer true and had never been, to the best of her recollection, her fault. There was a simmering anger on that child's behalf, a resentment for the people who had piled so many expectations on top of someone who was so small, who was supposed to ascend to godhood without a guide, without knowing how it could be done at all. There was a defiant sense that she _had_ managed to achieve what they did not believe her capable of, however badly things had gone after. There was a sense that she had been done a terrible wrong, in that long-ago, forgotten life.

What clung to her most insistently was the warmth of Urbosa's chest, and the firm pressure of her hand, and the soothing tone of her voice. She let that feeling, that _belonging_ , infuse every part of her.

Zelda wiped at her eyes, then realized she was staring at Riju, and more than that Riju was staring at _her_. The young Chief had tilted up the Thunder Helm and was now peering at her with a mix of fascination and genuine alarm.

"In my estimation," Zelda said, putting on a grin that she knew looked too natural, "it looks a bit big."

"...You don't say." Keeping her eyes on Zelda, Riju removed the Thunder Helm and returned it to its pedestal.

"Forgive my rudeness. Seeing you wearing the Thunder Helm, I was reminded of Lady Urbosa, and a memory chose that moment to unearth itself."

"Please do not concern yourself." In that moment, Zelda was forced to admire Riju, how smoothly she could take these preposterous ideas and at least put on the appearance of incorporating them into a new understanding of the world. "If I have aided you in your recovery, then I have already done the world a great service." She paused for a moment. "Stories say that you usually need to rest after recovering one of your memories. Would you like to continue our planning in the morning?"

Zelda had to stop herself from sighing in relief. "That would be most appreciated, yes."

"In that case, meet me in the audience room at any time after dawn. Do you need an escort on your way to the inn?"

"No." She thought further on it. "No, thank you. I do not think I am very likely to be waylaid. I will not be returning to the inn first, at any rate. I must go and collect Paya."

Riju nodded. A knowing smile played across her lips, and for all the world she looked much wiser than her years would suggest. "I suspect you two still have much to talk about."

"I suspect you are right. Thank you, Chief Riju."

Zelda bowed, Riju respectfully inclined her head, and Zelda turned and proceeded down the stairs to the audience chamber. She thought she heard Buliara speaking to Riju in a low voice, and then Riju snapping back with something, but she couldn't be sure. It might have been a conversation drifting up from the plaza, after all.

Walking through the audience room and stepping out into the training square again, Zelda was greeted by the sight of people eating. Gerudo, Rito, and Hylian women were gathered in small clumps, eating hot bowls of food and swapping stories and laughing and shouting and cajoling, with jokes being translated into two or three languages as they were told so that there were repeated, staggered waves of laughter that rippled across the gathered crowd. There was an air of vivacity to the people in that square that it was easy to get swept up by—there were even two Gorons in the plaza, though they were playing wallflower and not participating in the festivities directly.

Zelda passed through the crowd again, letting the voices sweep over her. No one knew her here, she was sure, and there was a sense of safety and security in the knowledge that no one could recognize her face.

A gnarled hand holding a spoon waved in the air, catching her attention, and she was corrected.

An elder, skin all wrinkles and eyes that seemed small in their sockets, waved her down. The same woman who had waved her down before, only now she was holding what looked like a bowl of hot stew. As if to confirm that, yes, she meant Zelda, she tapped on the bowl with her spoon and then pointed at Zelda as she moved through the crowd. This was no longer a friendly offer; it was a matronly command. _Girl, you look hungry. Come eat,_ the look said.

Zelda went through several possibilities in her head. Discarded most of them.

She smiled at the elder, then pointed at the barracks, pointed at the bowl, and held up two fingers.

The elder pointed at the bowl, held up two fingers, pointed at Zelda and the barracks, and held up two fingers once more, tilting her head inquisitively.

Zelda nodded.

The elder turned down the corners of her mouth in an approving or appreciative scowl, nodded, then turned away to fill a second bowl.

Zelda continued into the barracks. Leena and Kotta were nowhere to be seen, and now a group she didn't recognize were telling their own story of gathering people up during the shockwaves of Ganon's attack. There had been some resistance, particularly from the very young and very old. No one paid her any mind as she stepped into the infirmary.

Paya was writing in her diary. The guard still stood next to her, though she looked noticeably bored. Both looked up when Zelda entered the room; the guard's eyes lit up while Paya's swept down again. Zelda breathed in once, steeling herself as she walked across the room.

"Chief Riju has assented to the release of the patient," Zelda said.

"In that case, I will take my leave," the guard said—and then she was gone, taking long strides that had her out the door almost before the sentence was finished. She had her own carousing to get up to, Zelda suspected.

Zelda had expected that Paya would leap out of the bed, now that she was no longer being confined, but the Sheikah girl did not do so. She stared down at her hands, and did not stop while Zelda pulled up a chair again.

"I remembered Urbosa," Zelda said.

Paya's eyes darted up, and the look that crossed her face could only be described as a mixture of happiness and disappointment at not having been there for Zelda. "Oh?"

"Well. I recovered a memory about her. I remember how I felt about her in those moments, all the thoughts that passed through my mind about her... though I suppose I don't really remember her, still." Zelda winced. She was chasing shadows. "I'm sorry, I got distracted again."

"Please, there is no need to apologize."

"Paya," Zelda said, letting her irritation show just enough to make the other woman's eyes widen, "regardless of what you do or don't decide, I will not stand on formalities with you. Not after everything we've been through together."

"I-I-I wasn't—"

"I know you didn't mean to." She was still irritated, but it was hard to keep that feeling when it came to Paya. "But even if what happened today splits us apart, I'm not going to let it come between us personally. I _won't_. All right?"

Paya finally raised her head, and was blinking rapidly. "Yes. All right."

"I spoke to Chief Riju. Talking to her, remembering Urbosa." She shook her head. "I wish I had taken the time to come up with a speech, Paya. An argument. A single, irrefutable point that would make you decide you wanted to stay with me." She sighed. "I didn't. And, now that I've had time to think about it, I won't."

That hung in the air. Then Paya said, "You'll... accept my decision?"

"Yes. No matter what that decision is, I will respect it." She reached out, laying her hand on Paya's, and this time there was no flinching or pulling away. "I need you to understand two things, though. Will you listen?"

A nod, hesitant and wary.

"Firstly... I want you to make this decision tomorrow. I will speak to you about it no more than this. I... I know that's selfish. I'm hoping, more than a little, that my proximity will convince you where my words can't. But I'm also hoping that you'll have time to think it over, be a few hours removed from the shock of fighting Ganon, and... and if you decide to go home, then you will do so more confidently, and you will have no regrets. Can you do that for me?"

Paya smiled, and it was amused and sad and a little rueful. "That's not so much an _understanding_ as it is a request. But... yes. Yes, I can make that decision tomorrow."

Now Zelda felt a bite of shame, but regardless of her embarrassment she would not look away from Paya. "You are right. I'm sorry. And thank you. The second thing, though, is this: if you do leave, if you do return to Kakariko Village, you will go with my blessing, figuratively and literally. I do not think that you would be in more danger now than before—in fact, I suspect you will be in much less, with the Yiga gone—but I would still put what protections on you that I can. If we do not see each other again before I face the Calamity, I will still worry for you. I will still fight to protect you, as well as everyone else. I will still." She cleared her throat. "I will still want to talk. When you're ready."

Paya very visibly fought the urge to hide her face behind her hands while she nodded.

"Thank you. I just... wanted to say that. That I've had time to think today, and... even if I worry, and even if that makes me vulnerable to our enemies, then I want that vulnerability to be a strength, too. I will fight on behalf of the people of Hyrule, of the Champions, of Link, and of _you_ , and for all of you I will be stronger. I've been weak, Paya. I've been afraid of being hurt, afraid of what it might mean to let the world touch my heart. No more of that." Ah. Three things, then. She'd gone on too long. "Excuse me. Sorry. That's all."

Another, longer silence. Zelda had had more than enough of long silences today, as if it had been one long silence broken up by moments of unbelievable noise, but this one she let stretch out longer. For Paya. For herself.

"Shall we go back to the inn for now, then?" Paya's question was soft-spoken.

"Not yet," Zelda said. "I am reasonably sure that we have two bowls of stew waiting for us in the training yard."

Paya got up from the bed, putting her diary away in her pouch. "Two bowls of stew?"

"Yes. Possibly four. I probably should have asked more explicitly. Still, if it's four, that's all right—I've worked up an appetite."

They left together. When they reached the yard, Zelda led Paya through the crowd by her hand.

There were two bowls waiting for them, though those two were refilled more than once.


	40. Attack on Vah Naboris

Two figures set out from Gerudo Town an hour before dawn. They rode south, to Lookout Post, and there they waited.

Two hours after dawn, a crowd gathered at the walls of the town, voices raising from a soft murmur to a steady, insistent hum. There was a wave of shouting, of adulation, and at the head of that wave walked Riju, the Chief of the Gerudo, young and small but resplendent with the Thunder Helm fastened securely onto her head. She rode out, hauled across the sands by her faithful seal, Patricia, and many were those who looked after her with the real, genuine hope of people who had been searching for something to hope _for_ for a long, long time.

The Yiga were gone. Ganon stirred, but the Chief had the Thunder Helm, and was riding out to tame the wild Divine Beast, so it might be aimed at the enemy of the people. There were those who wondered if someone so small, someone so _young_ , could possibly do the things that were being set before her—but those voices were admonished by their sisters and aunts and mothers. All they could do was believe. Believe and wait.

So they waited, as Riju rode south.

* * *

"Is there any word from Sudrey?" Zelda asked.

Paya looked up from her place on the bench. The two of them had been sitting in the mostly-quiet for a long time, and ever since dawn Sudrey had been standing on the observation balcony, watching the Divine Beast. The sound of the storm around the Divine Beast Vah Naboris, the crash of lightning, rattled the small building as if it might be blown over, but Sudrey was undisturbed. She looked like one of the statues of the Seven, powerful and utterly implacable.

"It does not appear so," Paya said.

Zelda, on the other side of the room, nodded. It wasn't a response that left much room for a follow-up. She wished it did; she _wanted_ to do a follow-up, to talk more about... _anything_ , really. But she needed an opening, and she didn't really have one.

She had thought that they would have a conversation in the morning, that Paya would have questions or demands or assurances or any number of things, but there had been nothing. The Sheikah woman had gotten up and begun to dress, prepping herself in her normal traveling gear. Zelda had spent a few minutes thinking that Paya would walk out the door, then, that she would begin to walk back to Kakariko Village without even asking to use the Sheikah Slate's teleportation, but in the end the other woman had come with her to the sand seal renter. To Zelda's great relief they were given the same individuals that had carted them to the Yiga Clan Hideout—they had apparently scurried home at all speed as soon as the ground began to shake—and set out together. Still no words spoken, save for those small exchanges that were utterly necessary. A few checks for mutual readiness, but nothing that approached an actual conversation.

 _Well I need a conversation! Am I to just sit here and stew in my own thoughts, drive myself mad with anxiety? It can be remedied!_

She raised her head, determined to bridge the gap between the two of them.

The silence was loud, though, and the thunder aided it. Paya looked over her shoulder, out the window, and watched the light dancing in the sand. Vah Naboris roared, restless. Not the moment she wanted, then.

Then Paya turned, made eye contact with Zelda, and seemingly realized she was making eye contact before focusing very hard on her knees.

 _Oh, enough of this!_

"It seems obvious, since we are here," Zelda said. "But I can't help wondering where you stand, regarding our conversation yesterday."

Paya mumbled something which was lost in the noise outside, raised her eyes, realized she hadn't been heard, and then raised her voice. "I had a lot of time to think, in the infirmary."

Zelda nodded.

"It feels like I've spent most of this journey." She stopped, flushed, then visibly struggled before deciding to continue. "There aren't really any secrets between us anymore, are there?"

The princess thought for a long second. "I don't think so, no. If there are, I'm not keeping them intentionally."

"Nor am I. So... so there's no reason for me _not_ to tell you how afraid I've been. How hesitant I've felt. How unworthy to stand beside you." Paya couldn't maintain eye contact while she was saying this, but she kept talking, which was a world removed from how far she'd been able to take these conversations in the past. Zelda was actually in awe of her; she thought back to the young woman who she had left Kakariko Village with. How long had they been traveling together? Only a couple of months, surely. And in that time Paya had changed a great deal. "Do you remember when you finished recovering part of your memory and sat with me and Mipha in the shade, after? That's what we'd been talking about. How a regular person could possibly help someone like you."

She felt herself scowling, didn't try to hide it. "I know I can hardly claim to be 'a regular person' with everything that's happened, but..."

Paya shook her head, and Zelda fell quiet. "The point is more that you are... _you_. You're one of three players in a cycle that is nearly as eternal as the world itself. There have been figures who could aid the Hero and the Goddess in the past, but they were all people of legendary goodness and strength. It's impossible to measure up to those legends." She looked up, almost shy. "Except in your case, I suppose."

Zelda tried not to let her impatience show. She might have failed. "Paya, you know that I don't judge you against the standards of mythology."

"I know. But I do, because you are that mythology." She let that hang between them. "I wondered, after you left to talk with Chief Riju, what it would mean for me to return to Kakariko Village. I realized I was not afraid of the shame of returning alone, or even of having to explain everything to my grandmother. On some level I think it was expected that I would return at some point before the journey reached its end—certainly once the Yiga were neutralized. I wasn't afraid of how people would look at me, or being alone, or... or any of the things I would have been afraid of before we traveled together." She swallowed, visibly gathering up her courage. "I was afraid of—"

Zelda and Paya both jumped to their feet as the door swung open with a crash.

"Sorry," Riju said from the threshold, looking as sheepish as was reasonably possible with the Thunder Helm covering most of her face. "Didn't expect the wind to blow the door open like that."

The wind, in fact, was so strong that Riju couldn't force the door shut on her own; Zelda rose and helped her push it closed.

The light of morning in the building was dim, mostly blotted out by the sandstorm. Even in that low light Riju's helmet seemed to glow, humming with promise and power. Zelda could not help wondering at what magics had been tied into it, how much history and power it actually represented. Riju was grumbling as she unfastened the strap that held it in place under her chin.

"Really should have tried to get some padding... Sudrey!"

For the first time that morning the guard turned from her post and stepped inside, snapping off a very smart salute. "Yes, Chief Riju."

Riju tried to hold the Thunder Helm under one arm, found it was too big, and decided just to hold it with both hands. "What is the status of Vah Naboris?"

Sudrey held her arms behind her back, staring not at Riju but at the far wall. "The Divine Beast has, for the past few days, been keeping to its usual wandering patterns. There have been variations, but they are well within observed variant ranges." Zelda turned this over in her head, then started when she realized the pair were speaking in Hylian. _Probably for our benefit_. "However, within the past two hours, its course has been listing. Naboris is currently headed away from the outpost, but it is also turning at maximum speed. I estimate that when it comes about, it will head directly for this spot."

"Within the past two hours?" Riju shook her head. "It would seem that the enemy has better sensory capabilities than we'd given it credit for."

That made Sudrey look down at her Chief, eyebrows raised. For a moment it seemed she would ask for clarification, but in the end she did not.

Riju set her mouth in a line, rubbed at her brow with her fingertips, and thought for a moment. "All right. How long before Vah Naboris's bearing lines up with our location?"

"The Divine Beast will face us directly within the next fifteen minutes. It will reach us in another five or so, assuming that it is trying to do so."

"Rest assured that it is," Riju said, putting the Thunder Helm back on and fastening the strap once more. "However, it will not reach here. We will distract it and, if at all possible, we will stop it. I don't expect you will need to do so, but be prepared to flee if it comes within ninety seconds of this building. Do you understand?"

Sudrey did not respond, save by saluting again.

Riju motioned for Zelda and Paya to follow her—and barely managed to catch the door before it slammed open once more. She let it go when it was too far along to do much more than make a sizeable bang. "Sudrey, get the door for me."

"Of course, Chief Riju."

Riju, Zelda, and Paya stepped out into the storm. Zelda pulled her wrap over her nose, and Paya cleared her throat before putting on her stealth mask. Riju seemed utterly unbothered by the weather, but _very_ bothered by circumstance. She stepped over to her seal, rested one hand on its flank, and bent over as if the weight of the Thunder Helm was pulling her toward the ground.

Zelda and Paya exchanged a glance, and through an unspoken agreement Zelda was the one to approach the younger woman. She thought about putting her hand on Riju's shoulder, then restrained herself, folding both of her hands in front of her.

"Are you all right?"

Riju took a moment to respond. "This is real, isn't it?"

Zelda blinked. Riju sounded genuinely afraid, in a way she hadn't expected or even allowed space for in her mind. "Are you all right?"

The Chief shook her head. "I thought I was. When I went out to scout Vah Naboris, I was. Now? No. No, I'm not."

 _We are running out of time_. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

Paya cut in, "It can help." Riju frowned, but the Sheikah only nodded in return. "I promise. Just for a moment."

A moment's hesitation. Zelda could see the forces warring inside of Riju, the need to be a strong leader, the need to maintain that posture versus strangers, and the crushing reality of being fourteen years old while carrying the fate of an entire people very literally on her shoulders.

"When I last went near Vah Naboris, I thought of it as a malfunctioning machine. Its attacks felt automatic, without direction. The Thunder Helm protected me, and watching the lightning bolts break and spread around me made me feel so... _powerful_. It made me feel connected. Like I could do what was needed of me. Like I could do anything! But looking at it now, I can't see a machine that is behaving randomly. Do you know what I see?"

Zelda spoke the word:

"Ganon."

Around them, the wind seemed quieter.

Riju never looked up. "Yes. Enemy of the people. Do you know the story that, once, Ganon took on the shape of a Gerudo? We've had its stigma attached to us since time immemorial. With each of its appearances we wage war to erase that shame. We are supposed to hate Ganon more than we fear it." She was stroking Patricia's pelt, now. "But I can't. Not after yesterday, when it showed the world what it's actually capable of." Now she looked up, fixing her eyes on Zelda. "And it's more than that, isn't it? Reports say that there were monsters like Ganon itself on the Divine Beasts. That they attacked you when you tried to free the spirits of the Champions. That in each case, they nearly killed you."

Zelda hesitated before responding. Everything that Riju had just said was true, but there was more to the situation than the mere fact of it, wasn't there? And she couldn't concern herself with making sure Riju was _informed_ ; she had to make sure that Riju was _ready_. Being confronted with this, needing to support another person, made her feel slightly dizzy; was this what she'd been doing to Paya the entire time?

"Riju," she said, "I cannot ask you to be calm. The goddess knows that I have spent long enough wrestling with my own fears. However, I will ask you to order your thoughts, and through that order us as a group. What is the plan for approaching Vah Naboris?"

For a moment—just one—it seemed that Riju would balk. Then she said, "Do you have bomb arrows?"

"Plenty," Paya said. It was not just that; anticipating the needs of the day, Paya had the cruelly sharp bow of a lynel strapped to her back. However many bomb arrows they had, Vah Naboris would be feeling a great deal more.

Riju nodded, regained a measure of her composure. "Vah Naboris is most vulnerable at its feet. Using the Thunder Helm, I will be able to protect us from its attacks. A few direct hits with bomb arrows at each foot should render it immobile long enough for you to board. It should be... _very_ simple."

Her tone said, of course, that she did not believe it would be.

And, in all likelihood, she was right. Both Nah Ruta and Vah Rudania should have been simple, too, but nothing about approaching them or freeing them had been simple. The complications arose only partially from the powers of the Divine Beasts, and only partially from the powers of the monsters that acted as guards and gaolers; far more of it was rooted in the hatred and the cruelty of the darkness that fought beneath Hyrule Castle.

 _I am no less afraid than she is. But she is so young—even as tested as she is, even as much as the world has asked of her and taken from her, this may be too much. What can I do for her, when I too am swallowed by my fears?_

 _Lie_ , the answer came from inside of her. _Lie until the lie becomes real._

 _What can I do? The problem isn't Vah Naboris. The problem is Ganon._

 _Be the strength she needs. Be the strength everyone needs_.

"Chief Riju," Zelda said, in a tone that she had not used in a century: one of command, of authority, of respect. "I am ready to ride with you, and hope that you will ride with me in confidence. If you protect us from the lightning, and if you shield Paya so that she can stop Naboris..."

She reached within herself, grabbing hold of the power. Golden light exploded from her skin, bathing the area around her. The sand seals ceased their barking and the storm seemed to calm, ever so slightly, as Riju stood staring with an open mouth.

"You can leave Ganon to me."

Silence. Then:

The color of Riju's soul shifted. Zelda did not hear the girl praying to her ancestors; she _felt_ it, in the power that surged from the young Chief, in the answering power that came from the spirit realm. The Thunder Helm was like a beacon, and Riju was the flame that fed it. It flared, nearly as bright as Zelda, and all around them the wind was stilled and the sand ceased to whirl. Beyond the area of the Helm's influence, the storm raged, but within it there was quiet.

"Mount up," the Chief of the Gerudo said, and the Hylian oracle and her Sheikah attendant obeyed.

The three rode together into the storm. Vah Naboris's roar filled the distance.

* * *

They broke through the wall of the storm, into the eye where the air was still and the sky was clear. Vah Naboris's footsteps shook the desert beneath them, sending shockwaves through the ground that sent their shields bouncing on the sand.

It was not clear by what means it sensed them, but it reacted to them almost instantly, and the air shifted, hummed, _groaned_ under the strain of the power channeled through it.

"Stay close to me!" Riju shouted. Zelda could feel that she was within the area of Riju's protection, and while Paya steered her own sand seal closer to the Chief she took the time to look up, to observe.

A thunderbolt like Zelda had never seen struck the invisible shield provided by Riju's power channeled into the Thunder Helm, and the lightning split and danced over the surface, forming a dome of electricity directly above them for the barest fraction of a second. If she had not been shielding herself with the power, then the brightness would have seared her retinas.

The sound hit after that, so close and so explosive it could not even be called thunder, and it slammed into them like a physical wall. Paya jumped so hard her shield nearly slipped out from under her. All three riders had to tighten the grips on the reins of their seals.

Riju shouted over her shoulder, "It will be another few seconds before it can strike again! We're going to get as close as we can, as fast as we can!"

 _That should be easy_ , Zelda thought, _since it's walking directly toward us_.

Patricia and the two other seals barked in excitement as they were given the rein, dashing forward with all speed. They were either near-sighted in the extreme or were perceiving Vah Naboris as terrain; they did not respond at all to the looming tower of force and destruction. Every footfall was like a thunderclap, and as they drew near to it Zelda found herself craning her neck up to stare at the face of the machine.

 _How tall are these things? A hundred meters? More?_ There was a moment where she tried to imagine the feat of engineering that was the building of these colossi, the facilities that must have been erected to manufacture even a single plate of their armor, to say nothing of the assembly, and she was swept away by a sense of awe and giddy, unyielding euphoria. _We really are capable of so much, aren't we?_

"Get ready!" Riju's voice rose as the air buzzed. "After the next one, we're going in!"

The world roared. Lightning slammed into the shield again, feeding harmlessly into the sand.

" _Now!_ "

Riju led Patricia with an easy, practiced hand, and Paya and Zelda followed in her wake as they swept toward the slowly moving feet of Vah Naboris. A single step. Zelda cut a glance at Paya, saw that she held the reins of her steed in her teeth, freeing her arms for the lynel bow and the hissing, burning arrows that she held notched. That glance became a stare—she could not look away from Paya as she pulled back the string of the inhuman weapon, and then loosed her payload. By dark magic one bomb arrow became three. All three slammed into Naboris's right forefoot.

The eruption was louder than the thunder, and the Divine Beast roared in protest and fury as the power coursing through its right leg went out. Riju whooped loudly as the lightning struck again, her excitement turning into a peal of genuine—if frightened—laughter. Zelda had to fight down her own adrenaline-fueled reaction; yes. This felt good. Riju led the three in a wide sweep, Paya pulling hard on the reins with her neck while reading another shot.

 _Something is wrong_.

What? What was it?

The lightning surged again. Riju was still laughing, the power of the Thunder Helm protecting them all from the rage of the Divine Beast, which was too slow to attack them directly.

 _It's too slow to attack anything directly. It would need a stationary target, at which point it might as well not—_

She saw.

"It's stopped moving!"

So it was. One leg robbed of its power, Vah Naboris had come to a complete halt, and was no longer making an attempt to address its attackers save by the relatively passive means of its lightning attacks.

Zelda did not have to look to understand, of course. There was only one explanation for this change in behavior, for this shift in the air, and it was as simple as sleeping, as clean as death. Still, she looked up. So did Riju and Paya. All of them saw that the Divine Beast seemed to be ignoring them, like a god ignoring insects. Its sights were set on a target more in keeping with the vastness of its attentions. A stationary target.

Paya made a distressed sound.

The crest on the side of Vah Naboris's head shifted, and a red targeting light painted the side of a distant wall.

" _Gerudo Town!_ " Riju's shriek was almost incoherent.

Credit Zelda this: she did not think, then. She pulled hard on the reins of her sand seal, which broke off from the group, and hurtled toward the front of Vah Naboris.

"Zelda, stop!" Paya's voice behind her. She must have wrapped the reins around one of her forearms.

The power was in her, and she shouted back in Hylia's voice that reverberated off of everything:

" _Keep shooting it!_ "

The capacitors of the Divine Beast were so energy-dense that they defied Zelda's understanding of how power could be stored in the first place; if they were called divine, then it was because whatever engine drove them must have been crafted with the secrets of the gods. She could hear the whine as that energy gathered, collecting until it was a spear that could pierce the side of the Calamity itself. She understood, having been near the firing of these weapons twice now, what it would sound like when it wiped an entire city from existence.

An explosion behind her as Paya unleashed another volley. Vah Naboris did not even roar, though Zelda knew with the faith of her heart and the far-reaching senses of the power that the bomb arrows had struck home.

With those same senses Zelda felt the lightning before it struck the field of the Thunder Helm, was prepared when the thunder washed over her like a physical force. With those same senses Zelda felt the— _particles? Is lightning made of particles? Small pieces of light? What am I perceiving?_ —of the air beginning to shift and gather and whirl, directed by the vast and unyielding energies of the Divine Beast. Not aimed at Riju and Paya this time. No, it would be striking directly at her. Trying to stop her, because it knew.

The sand seal outpaced Vah Naboris, tearing ahead of the Divine Beast, careening as if pursued by a predator. The whine grew to a terrible pitch.

The air shifted in the moment before the lightning struck, and Zelda thrust her fist defiantly into the sky.

Lightning smashed into a dome of red light, bouncing harmlessly off of Daruk's Protection. She felt for the next volley, to see if it was aiming for her or for Riju.

There was nothing. All of Naboris's energy was focused on powering up its primary weapon.

She pulled hard on the reins, and her sand seal came to a halt. She jumped off of her shield, stood on the sand, turned and looked up at the Divine Beast.

She'd pulled perhaps a hundred and fifty meters ahead of it. It was less than four seconds from firing.

 _I'm going to need your help again,_ she thought.

From that boundless space where souls dwelt, a long-dead Champion roared in laughter and in challenge.

* * *

From a distance one could see the subtle shifting in the Divine Beast's stance just before it fired. A third volley of bomb arrows struck at its heels, and it ignored these as it lowered its stance and tilted forward its head, bracing through a series of extending struts that reinforced the neck in relation to the torso. There was a sound, then, though it was on a level that only gods could hear clearly.

A ball of golden light launched into the air. Distance did not matter, but Zelda still thought in very concrete terms. With Daruk's strength and Mipha's aid she sailed up, up, until she was level with the Divine Beast's head.

Vah Naboris fired.

It is easy, after the scale of the Calamity's attack, to forget the power of the Divine Beasts. Not breakers of worlds, but breakers of mountains, dwarfed by their enemy but so far removed from the course of regular life that to the average person they might as well have been identical. A tube of light erupted from Vah Naboris's face, as big around as the torso of the beast itself, and the air before it was burned clean.

The ball of golden light flared, brighter than Naboris's weapon, brighter than the light of day, darkening the world around it. The golden light turned a searing, roaring red, like a floating gem. The gem became a sphere.

The attack struck the goddess-empowered Daruk's Protection. It sprayed in a wide cone, as if it were made of light, but not one stray mote reflected past the oracle who floated at the center of the maelstrom, leashing the power of the gods and using it as a block against pure destruction, against wanton death. The sound was so loud that the thunder was like nothing, and the eruption of bomb arrows was lost to the wind.

Fully draining the power of the Divine Beast would have taken long, long seconds. Perhaps Ganon had planned for those stretched-out moments. Perhaps Zelda could have survived that; or perhaps, after nearly dying while containing and directing the power of the Calamity, it would have been beyond her current capacity. There was no time to tell.

The last leg of Vah Naboris was deactivated. The surge in power that rushed through the frame of the beast forced it into a full system reset. Its power outputs fell to zero.

The beam of light dwindled, dwindled, and was gone.

A ruby sphere fell lightly to the sand below.

Vah Naboris went into an automatic resting posture, drawing its legs up under it and lowering its body to increase stability.

Three sand seals streaked toward one another. Two riders, one nearly in shock from the relief and the other grimly determined from familiarity with what was to come, waved at the third—who did not wave back.

Zelda felt the darkness stirring within the Divine Beast. She reached out with the power of Hylia, all of it that she could muster, and as she rode for Riju and Paya she reached out across the vast, infinite space that separated one soul from another.

* * *

Count the grains of sand in the desert. No. Not all at once. Begin with the grains that you can hold on your fingertip. Brush them onto your palm. Fill up your palm thusly. And when you have a palmful, drop it onto the earth, let it there rest. And for every palmful you add, you have counted that many grains. Keep counting. Keep going. Fill the desert. Fill the world.

The Great Urbosa was not a patient woman. She had never been patient—few were the problems she could not solve with her hands and with her words, and those problems she resented most terribly. Death had been one of those problems. Waiting had been one of those problems.

She was sensitive, among the Champions, to the thought and spirits of others. Perhaps not the _most_ sensitive, but when the Blight had driven its sword into her stomach and pulled upward, when the hands she'd had locked around its throat had fallen loose and darkness had fallen around her and she'd come to be chained down in this dark, lonely, cold place, she had been able to look out across the vast distances of Hyrule. The others were bound, as she had been bound. She could see each of them.

Urbosa had never been patient. And, as it turned out, she did not take well to being bound, even if the chains that held her were chains of the spirit.

After Daruk had fallen to his vigil, after Revali had exhausted himself, after Mipha had stilled and turned her gaze toward Hyrule Castle, Urbosa still fought. Her struggle was not thoughtless; every motion, every pull, was focused and calculated and invested with as much force as she could muster. For _years_ she pulled against the dark, testing it, feeling out its strengths, searching for weaknesses. For years more she continued, not in the hopes that continuously applied pressure would weaken it but because she had nothing else to do.

She _could not wait_. Zelda was still out there—alive—and if Urbosa was still here then that meant that Ganon was still out there, too.

It was not fear that drove her. It was not a need to be free. It was not revenge. It was not even shame, that burning core of her that flared up every time she thought of Ganon, of how the other peoples of Hyrule quietly related the Calamity to the Gerudo.

Every time her strength flagged, every time her will began to slip, she would hold a phrase to her heart:

"She needs me."

And she would find her strength again.

Zelda's face stayed in the forefront of her mind, and Urbosa fought, and the firmament quaked at her resistance.

She lost herself to that struggle. Hours turned to days turned to decades, and she noticed not at all. Time passed no more quickly for her, but it didn't matter. She never stopped. The Hero would have nodded in appreciation, surely, if he saw how fiercely she fought from beyond the pall of death.

Then, one day, a light broke through the darkness, far to the east. The binds holding Mipha in place shattered, and the Zora Champion was freed. The darkness screamed, raging at the power wielded against it, but it could not stop her. Urbosa felt a stirring at that, a surety: yes. She was coming.

But Urbosa did not wait.

She drew into herself, focusing all of her power, gathering it into a single point for a single moment. With the same fervor that she had fought against her confinement, she prepared. She barely noticed when Daruk was freed. She barely noticed anything. She focused. She held Zelda's face in her heart. Her entire soul was like a clenched fist, waiting to be thrown.

Then. _Then_.

A light broke open above her. The darkness split.

With the eyes of her soul did Urbosa look up and see the golden radiance that reached down through the dark. The hand, which she had held while the princess wept. The arm, so much stronger than it had been in days past. The face, set with determination and hope. Her mother's face, all over again.

"Urbosa!" Zelda called to her.

 _Yes. Her mother's face._

For a century Urbosa had not allowed herself to dwell on that, had not let her past torment her, but now, _now_ as she unleashed all of her strength, as lightning filled the void, as a thunderstorm erupted into existence from nothing with such ferocity that even Zelda was stunned by it, as Urbosa's bindings snapped like glass, that was what went through her mind: the face of her beloved queen, and a promise she had made long ago.

 _I will protect our daughter._

She was still bound, but she reached out across the dark, and the thunder announced her.

" _Little bird!_ "

Zelda's hand clasped with hers.

* * *

Riju's information network was vast, as such networks went. She was learned, informed, in ways that the leaders of other tribes might not be. Yes, the Sheikah were probably _better_ -informed, and there was a hard limit on how much information could be fed through a collection of travelers and merchants who were all nine feet tall and stood out everywhere they went, but she knew _enough_. Or thought that she did, anyway.

She had learned, for instance, what had happened during the attack on Vah Ruta. The almost impossible-to-imagine assault on the Divine Beast, the appearance of King Dorephan on the shore of the reservoir—and the appearance of the Princess Mipha, who had flitted across the water like a ghost, doing battle with the Waterblight personally. So, too, had she heard—because apparently a young Goron named Yunobo was very open to conversation—that the spirit of Daruk had manifested to do battle with the Fireblight on the back of Vah Rudania. That the spirits of the Champions had appeared was known to her. That, she assured herself, meant that she was mentally prepared for any circumstance or strangeness that should come her way.

She believed that until the very moment that she came to a stop, adjusting the Thunder Helm, and looked at Zelda—only to realize she was not looking at the Hylian princess.

Or, she was. But the Hylian girl wasn't foremost in her perceptions, as if she was occupying the same space as another person. And that person...

Riju took off the Thunder Helm, holding it in her hands as she looked up at the towering figure of the lost Chief of the Gerudo.

The light of the day was behind Urbosa, throwing her silhouette into harsh relief, and the wind tugged gently at the enormous, carefully maintained mass of her hair. Urbosa looked at her and smiled.

 _Oh,_ Riju thought, _she smiles like my mother did._

Urbosa knelt, very formally, and something in Riju rebelled at the sight of it—but knew that to act on that rebellion would be a far more horrible disrespect. So, even though she wanted to ask Urbosa to get up, to offer up her own dignity in response, she didn't; she stood, as tall and imperious as she could manage, extremely aware that Urbosa was still the taller as she knelt, of Paya as the warrior watched this exchange.

"Chief of the Gerudo," Urbosa said, and her voice was smooth and deep and calming in the extreme, "I have a request I would humbly put before you, if allowed."

Riju breathed in. Breathed out. This was important. She had to get it right. She had to be strong. As strong as the woman who was paying her deference.

"I will hear your request," she said.

Urbosa inclined her head further. "You have my most sincere thanks. Great Chief, a terrible evil will soon bear down upon us. I ask that I be allowed to defend your person and the person of your companion against this threat."

 _I should have brought the Scimitar of the Seven! And Daybreaker!_

Through that panic Riju found calm. She nodded. "You have my permission. Shall I provide you with arms?"

Now Urbosa lifted her head, and the turn of her mouth was clever, teasing, and something in that made Riju relax. "No, Great Chief. I fear I must make a more presumptuous request: that I be allowed to borrow the Thunder Helm. When last I faced this evil, I wanted dearly for the protection of our ancestors."

Far, far in the distance, from the back of Vah Naboris, a howl rose. It was like the howling of a sandstorm, save that it _cracked_ , like a voice finding itself for the first time. There was Malice in that howl.

Riju had to fight the urge to just throw the Thunder Helm at Urbosa. To beg her to take it. She could hear the evil of Ganon crawling along the back of the Divine Beast, preparing to leap—even across this distance—and urging her to hurry. But she would not hurry. The Chief of the Gerudo did not hurry, when she could help it, and she genuinely believed that she had enough time. So she stopped, pretending to consider this request.

Then, she held the Thunder Helm out. The weight seemed enormous with her arms extended.

Urbosa took the relic in her carefully maintained hands, and it looked so natural as she turned it between her fingers.

The howl in the distance cut off. A black thunderbolt streaked into the air, tracing a jagged line of darkness through the sky, cutting the blue into sections delineated by a hissing void. The thunderbolt shrieked toward them, crossing the distance of a kilometer in the space of mere heartbeats.

Urbosa placed the Thunder Helm on her head.

The howling death cut through the air, and Riju thought she caught the impression of a sword as it swung for Urbosa.

Riju was knocked onto her back by a wave of force, and then she heard the thunderclap. For a few brief moments she was so dazed she could do nothing but observe.

The Blight was shaped like a person—like a _man_ , she corrected herself—with a cape of fire hanging from its shoulders. It was of size with a Gerudo, and in its hands it held two curved blades, like scimitars the size of greatswords. Its body was layered in armor like that of the Guardians, and its face was a flat plane with a single red, glass eye staring out of its center. Red hair rose behind it, waving in the breeze. The creature hesitated.

 _Lightning. It didn't expect the lightning._

Paya was in front of Riju, standing between her and the spawn of Ganon, sword and shield in her hands.

Urbosa rose to her feet. Turned to face the Blight.

The Blight howled again, and Riju covered her ears to protect against the shriek.

The Great Urbosa clenched her fist, and lightning danced between her fingers.


	41. The Great Urbosa

A story was told about the Divine Champions of a century ago. They were the representatives of their people, yes, but they were also the embodiments of separate principles. One of the guiding principles that had led to their selection by the royal family was that they should balance each other, to be a perfect and self-contained force even removed from the Hero and the Princess.

It was easy to think of Urbosa as the anchor of that group, the emotional core who could guide the others when there was no other direction forthcoming. However, that thinking was erroneous; she was not a maternal force for any save one. To the rest, she was an equal partner, and the shape of that partnership had been passed down among the Gerudo for generations after.

Daruk, it was known, was the protector. No harm could come to the Champions while he was with them, and the Calamity itself would have to deal with him first before reaching for those he loved.

Mipha was the mender, who could heal the wounds of the body like placing water back into a pool. What harm _was_ suffered by the Champions, she could undo. Knowing that the clock could be turned back, and fatal wounds rendered meaningless, was treated as its own miracle.

Revali, chief flier and warrior of the Rito, was the watcher. He could move through the world in ways that the others could not, could be eyes and ears that they would never have otherwise, could gather information and act on it more quickly than anyone else on the continent.

Urbosa, who commanded the lightning, who was feared by the servants of the Calamity, was not the mother of that group; she was not the shield; she was not the spear; she was not the heart; she was not the mind.

The Great Urbosa was the destroyer.

It was the destroyer who turned in the middle of the desert to face the Blight who had killed her a century before; it was the destroyer whose hair waved in the breeze as she stared down the incarnation of Ganon's hatred; it was the destroyer whose back Riju stared at as a lifetime of stories played out in her mind.

The Blight shifted. Urbosa raised one finger.

"Careful," she warned the beast.

It flashed, and was gone.

The world exploded into a hail of lightning, the roar of a hundred thunderclaps drowning out the Thunderblight's scream. Riju's eyes followed the scream, found the monster as electricity surged over its body. It was behind Urbosa, swords raised as if to strike, its muscles locked in place by the current surging through it. Thunderbolts fell from the heavens, flashes of white tinged with green, and Riju wanted to look but she had to shield her eyes from the searing brightness.

There was a gap in the thunder.

"I told you," Urbosa said.

The lightning fell again, redoubling.

 _I was a fool to think she needed a weapon._

There, the true power of the Chiefs of the Gerudo, masters of the storm, channeling the blessing of their ancestors. Urbosa turned slowly, languidly, first with her head and then her torso and then her hips, making the motion look fluid and almost musical. The Blight was writhing on the ground, now, as the heat of the lightning strikes began to melt the sand beneath its back.

"That's not all you can do," Urbosa said. She was smiling. Not a warm smile, not a soft smile, not even an amused smile. An inviting smile. A challenging smile. A destroyer's smile.

She was right, of course. Who would know better than her?

In one moment the Thunderblight was down on the ground, its swords clenched tightly in its fists. In the next moment, half a heart-beat later, it was up, and lightning surged over its fists, and it lunged at Urbosa.

Her smile grew wider.

* * *

Leena was one of the lucky ones; Barta and Liana had definitely gotten the worst of the punishment, while she and Kotta went blameless for the events at the Yiga Hideout. Well, relatively. The two of them would be shoveling out the sand seal stalls for a month, but that only meant they'd finish around the same time that Barta and their sergeant were done running laps around Gerudo Town—just in time to hand the duty off, really.

Kotta had opted to have a drink on her break; Leena, in contrast, had gone to the wall. She preferred having a packed lunch, and the wall was a nice, mostly solitary place to eat and to think. She clambered easily up the interior of the southern wall, sat on the top with her feet dangling over, and watched the sandstorm roiling. That voe who liked to run laps stopped and gawked up at her, but she ignored him.

She only had eyes for the storm.

Everyone had been out to watch Chief Riju ride toward the Lookout Post, Thunder Helm strapped carefully in place. No one had really known what to expect, of all of that. Certainly the _gesture_ was grand enough, riding out toward the Divine Beast as if to tame it, but the Chief had never actually mentioned what her plans were. For all anyone knew, she was just scouting it out. For all anyone knew, the Chief was trying to figure out if the Thunder Helm still _worked_.

In the barracks, Leena had knocked the words out of a few mouths who'd spoken unkindly about the Chief; that was to be expected of anyone who respected the office, really, and if one of the other guards wanted to speak foolishly, they would be treated in a manner befitting a fool. Fights over that had been getting less and less common over time, especially after the Thunder Helm had been stolen.

Still. If Leena was honest with herself, _really_ honest, then she still had trouble thinking of the Chief as anything but a child. A child with a lot of responsibilities who was doing her best to shoulder the weight of an entire people, yeah, but... the Chief probably wasn't even five feet tall, yet. Everything about her, up to and including the cushioning that had been set on the throne like a really fancy booster seat, betrayed that she had been thrust into this position too early. The position of Chief wasn't _always_ inherited matrilineally, and while Leena would never suggest, ever, around _anyone_ , that Chief Riju was unqualified, because she most certainly was and she proved it _every day_ , she had to admit that she also thought it was probably too much for someone that age. The Chief had Buliara's help, sure, but if they went that far why not just have Buliara be Acting Chief until Riju came properly of age? That would save the Chief a lot of grief, give her time to grow into the role, let the people adjust to the status quo, and _everyone_ trusted in Buliara, really.

That was the sort of thing Leena was thinking as she sat on the wall. She'd been thinking along those lines a lot, and seeing the storm whirling in the distance just led her mind down familiar, well-trodden paths. That wasn't bad, though it could get a bit tedious.

 _Huh. Wonder why the storm is fading_.

She took a bite of her melon wrap. Chewed it thoughtfully.

Paused. Looked out at the storm again.

She swallowed, nearly choked because she wasn't really finished chewing, and pounded on her chest with her fist while staring at the sands in the distance.

"What in the world," she wondered out loud, and in her head she wondered if she should run and get Kotta. Maybe even get Liana and Barta.

She could see Vah Naboris now, kneeling in the sands like a tamed seal. Off to the side, perhaps a kilometer away from the Divine Beast, she could see... she wasn't sure. A geyser of darkness, maybe? And lightning strikes.

Wishing she could will the world into silence, Leena put down her food and cupped her hands behind her ears, to better hear across the distance.

There. She _could_ hear the thunder of that storm.

 _The Divine Beasts are supposed to have monsters on them. That's what all the stories are saying. Did the Chief... could_ Riju... _?_

Leena jumped to her feet, not noticing when the rest of her lunch tumbled off the edge of the wall and plopped to the sand far below her. Now she held her hands over her brow, blocking out the glare of the day so she could _see_ more clearly.

Darkness and lightning. So _much_ lightning. More than danced in any sandstorm. Now she could hear it without cupping her ears. If anything it was getting louder.

"Is that what she's using the Thunder Helm for?" She said out loud. "Is Chief Riju fighting the monster?"

Tears welled up, unbidden, as she thought of the child-Chief fighting on behalf of her people, wielding the power of her ancestors against the beasts of Ganon. _And we think of her as a child! She fights for us and we think of her as a child!_

She leaped down from the wall, back into town. She hit the ground at a roll and was already running when she got to her feet.

 _I have to find the others. They all need to see this._

* * *

Urbosa's arms came up with a liquid smoothness, her hands pressing against the wrists of the Blight and throwing its blows wide. Electricity surged from the monster and into the Great Chief so that yellow light danced over Urbosa's face and torso. The Blight howled in undisguised glee—and that choked off when Urbosa's grinned beneath the Thunder Helm.

"You're trying to use electricity against _me_ now?" she said to it. She was speaking Hylian.

Urbosa threw a punch with her right fist. The Blight brought up both of its arms in a cross block. Her fist slammed into its forearms, and there was a roar of thunder as lightning exploded from the point of contact. A shockwave of force sent the Blight tumbling, skipping over the sand like an enormous stone, its flaming cape whipping wildly around it as it tried to anchor itself.

Golden heels sank into the sand as Urbosa crossed the distance between herself and the beast. Lightning danced across her fingers, but her gait was slow, languid, unbearably comfortable. She could have been out for a midday stroll.

 _This is not like the other Blights,_ thought Paya, who still stood in front of Riju, ready to defend the young Chief. _How much suffering could we have avoided if Urbosa had been wearing the Thunder Helm a century ago?_

The Blight flashed and lightning struck it and it crashed into the sand directly in front of Urbosa, who looked down at it.

 _This isn't a fight_.

The Blight roared and surged to its feet, and though lightning struck it it powered through the attack and swung its massive blades at the dead Chief.

 _This is punishment._

Bolts fell on both Urbosa and the Blight as the Gerudo grappled with her killer, grabbing hold of both of its wrists with hers. It brought up its leg to strike at her ribs, and she intercepted with her own. The lightning phased her not at all, but every strike made the Blight writhe all over again, slowing it, making it weaker and clumsier than it would have been otherwise.

With a motion that would have made a Sheikah proud Urbosa released the Blight's right wrist and broke its grip on its left sword, tearing the weapon away from the beast. It swung with the right and she stepped inside of the blow, smashing against the Blight's chest with her shoulder, forcing it back, and then its other weapon was singing in her hands.

The Gerudo did not fight in the same way as the Sheikah or the Yiga, who were strictly concerned with the economy of motion, and Urbosa was as far removed from the guards who had invaded the Yiga Hideout as Mipha had been from the soldiers who had distracted Vah Ruta. She was a whirlwind, perpetually in motion, and the light of the sword in her hands traced dazzling whorls in the air. The Blight intercepted and blocked but mostly it retreated, giving step after step of space as Urbosa pushed forward, and now she was _laughing_.

The Blight missed a parry and Urbosa's swing took it in the shoulder. It howled. Lashed out at her with its fist.

"Come on!" She released the sword, danced back, hopping from one foot to the other like she was preparing to beat the beast to death with her fists. "Don't you remember? I wasn't ready for you a century ago and you got worked over anyway! If you want to win now, you'd better fight seriously!"

The words escaped her lips and the air shifted.

Paya had never been clear on if the Blights were intelligent, so to speak. Certainly they could _think_ , in some limited way, and they were aggressively malicious, but she'd never been able to piece together if they were able to understand language or respond to the thoughts of others. She'd never given it much thought, save for those few times when sleep would not find her and she'd let her mind drift.

The howl that answered Urbosa seemed to answer Paya, too.

The Blight understood.

Lightning exploded from it in every direction, not into it but _from_ it, and that surge of power was laced with the Malice. The sands around it were torn open, dunes ruptured like pieces of fruit, and Paya saw a flicker of motion toward her, toward Riju, and of course she couldn't react in time this was _lightning_.

The white-and-black death broke off, peeling around her, as if redirected. She did not even have time to see what had happened. _Urbosa must have done that, how can she react so quickly—_

But then Urbosa looked over her shoulder, at Paya—then past Paya.

"That was nicely done, Chief," the Great Urbosa said.

Behind Paya, Riju gave the kind of nervous, terrified laugh that said she had reacted out of instinct, and nearly exhausted herself in the act. Paya glanced at the current Chief, just for a second—Riju was on her feet, now, hands held out in front of her. She was shaking, coated in sweat, but she looked determined even more than she looked afraid.

"It's all right," Riju said. "Be ready if it comes near. I'll be ready if it attacks from afa—"

An eruption of sound, a pressure at her back, and Paya turned back to the beast, shield up.

The Blight's swords exploded into glistening shards that spun and whirled and floated in the air, dancing with intent, surging with Malice and thunder. It held its arm out toward Urbosa. The hailstorm of death erupted toward her as if launched from a siege weapon.

Urbosa snapped her fingers.

Paya did not see what happened next; no human senses could keep up with that flash of motion, of power, of sound, of heat. She had an impression that was written hard onto her vision: a streak of twisting light, tracing a path from the heavens to Urbosa's fingers to the shards in the air to the Blight itself. That lightning was so bright, so white, that the world around it was rendered black.

Paya covered her eyes and fell back out of reflex.

The Blight was screaming.

Paya recovered, holding her sword and shield in front of her. She couldn't see, wouldn't be able to see again for minutes, and her ears afforded her nothing either.

Urbosa snapped her fingers again and there was another thunderclap, another scream. Another snap, another crash, another scream.

Another. Another. Another.

Arms wrapped around Paya's waist as Riju clung to her.

Another. Another. Another.

The snaps continued. The thunder answered, and every time it roared the earth shook more and more insistently. The Blight stopped screaming after the eighth strike. It stopped making any noise at all after the tenth.

The world disappeared into that maelstrom of sound, into Urbosa's fury given voice, and Paya did the only thing she could think to: she turned to Riju and grabbed hold of the young Chief, falling into a crouching position to lessen the area they might present as targets. She threw her sword away, pressing her right palm against Riju's left ear and pressing the right hard against her chest, protecting the Chief's hearing as best she could. With her left arm she held up the shield, ready to ward off a blow that she knew would never come.

The lightning raged.

* * *

"Are you ready, little bird?"

There was a gap there, Zelda thought. A gap between the person of Urbosa who spoke so kindly to her, even in the middle of battle, who had carried her when she was small and who she had loved like a mother—and the person who was fighting the Blight. Zelda could feel both of those people now, played host to both of those women, and realized after a few moments that they _weren't_ different. These were two facets of the same soul.

"Little bird?"

"Yes," she responded, in that vast space where souls could mingle with one another. Urbosa was still bound, but in reaching out to one another they were united as they'd been when the Great Chief had still been alive. "Yes, I am ready."

There were no bodies in that space, but she still felt Urbosa's hand resting against the back of her neck. The touch was warm, boundlessly warm, and she had never in her life felt so secure as in that moment.

"I am so proud of you. I think that, once this thing is dead, I would like to talk to you for a while."

Something in that thrilled her, more than she had been expecting. "Oh, yes! That will be so wonderful! And not just to me—Riju will want to talk to you, and you can meet _Paya_ , and—" A gentle pressure at her back. She reeled in her excitement. "I'm sorry. Yes, I'm ready."

"Good. This next one will be the last."

Urbosa called on the lightning as Zelda took hold of all the power she could. She felt it, in the physical world, as the grand matron of all thunderbolts fell from the heavens, smashing the Blight into the ground, blasting apart its armor, laying its inner Malice open to the air above it.

The thunder was drowned out, smothered, by the ringing of a mighty bell.

* * *

"There. Hold still just like that. Good. This will only take a moment."

The soothing coolness of Mipha's power flowed from Zelda's fingertips, along the curve of where Riju's jaw met her skull, pooling down into her right ear canal. Leveraging that coolness meant that Zelda could feel it, too, and more than that she could feel the changes that it wrought on Riju's body.

"The eardrum is lightly damaged. Do you hear a faint ringing?"

"Yes," Riju said. She was very calm, for all the things that she'd just seen. _For all the thing she's just been through_ , Zelda thought.

"That is normal. Give me just a moment."

Riju was kneeling in the sand, and Zelda beside her. Ten meters away was the still-smoking depression where the Blight had last lain, its Malice boiled away by the power of the goddess after its body had been rent asunder by Urbosa's attack. Paya studied this depression with an intensity that suggested she thought that the Blight might regenerate. Zelda had already attended to Paya's injuries, as Riju had insisted that she, as Chief, could not receive ministrations before anyone else in the party. Zelda was still trying to unpack that, to pull it all to pieces and figure out what that meant. Paya's own hearing had been damaged much more badly than Riju's. That was probably the root of it.

 _You are so happy to lie to yourself_.

Well. That was true, she supposed.

Urbosa's spirit stood astride a dune, looking at the younger women, the distant Gerudo Town, and Vah Naboris in turn. She still wore the Thunder Helm. The ghost fires floated calmly around her, lending her an air of serenity and peace that was almost completely divorced from the unstoppable force she'd been only minutes ago. She was still wearing the Thunder Helm, making it impossible to tell if she was focusing on an individual or the group. Something in that was comforting, Zelda reflected, even as it made her anxious. There was a space being maintained between them, and she wanted desperately to bridge that gap but could feel that Urbosa was trying not to pressure her. Not to hurry her.

She pulled her fingertips away from Riju's head. "That should do it. How do you feel?"

The Chief of the Gerudo turned her head one way, and then the other, as if to catch the wind. She held her hands up and rubbed her palms together at different positions and different distances around her head. She clapped her hands directly in front of her—once, twice, thrice. Finally, she nodded.

"All is as it should be." The Chief's words were in Hylian, once more for Paya's benefit. Riju rose and offered her hand to Zelda, pulling her to a standing position. "Thank you. It is a great relief to know that I have been spared the consequences of using the power of the Chiefs, if only this once."

 _Using, rather than being near. Curious_.

Paya stepped over, falling in beside and behind Zelda, instantly assuming the position of guardian and handmaid. If there was any artifice between the three of them now, it was only that Paya had picked up on the expectations of the meeting heads of state and was attempting, in whatever way she could, to boost Zelda's standing.

Zelda responded sheepishly, "Yes. The lightning was quite severe, wasn't it?" Her eyes wandered to Vah Naboris. "Mipha's power repairs damage to my body as soon as it's incurred, so I had little time to notice it, but I _was_ wondering whether the Thunder Helm can protect one from such furious light and sound."

"It does not," the reply came from behind them.

Urbosa strolled down the side of the dune, her steps rhythmic and swaying and communicating absolute confidence, absolute power. She walked with her left hand fixed firmly to her hip. When she reached the bottom of the dune, she wore a knowing, clever, almost teasing smirk.

"The Thunder Helm allows the Chiefs of the Gerudo to command the lightning, and will even protect us from its searing kiss, but there is nothing that can shield us from its brightness or its roar." She came to a stop before the three, towering above the gathering. "For most purposes, we never need anything close to the full power it allows us, and so we only call upon a fraction of it—or, more typically, only what power we have within ourselves. If we were to leverage the Thunder Helm in its fullness too often, it would quickly rob us of our sight and our hearing."

Riju turned to face Urbosa fully, setting her feet firmly apart and clasping her hands behind her back. For all that Urbosa was easily twice her height, she managed to give off the sense of actually looking _down_ at the former Chief. The sight would have struck Zelda as hilarious, or even obscene, if it weren't for the fact that Urbosa immediately matched Riju's pose—only clasping her hands in front, rather than behind.

"Great Urbosa," Riju said, "you have used the power of our ancestors well. The Blight that infested the Divine Beast Vah Naboris has been destroyed by your hand, and the people are grateful for your service."

Urbosa's answer came in the form of a deep bow.

Riju continued, "In light of your valor and your fulfillment of your duty, it is only right that I, as your Chief, should reward you. However," and here she paused, as if wrestling with the idea, "there is no means by which I may reward the dead."

 _Glory? Stories? Song? Prayer? Offerings_? The list was rattled off in Zelda's head before she could even scold herself for it. There was more going on here in this conversation, and she was only thankful that she managed to keep her mouth shut.

Urbosa bowed again, straightened, and removed the Thunder Helm. She held it out to Riju, and the Chief considered this for long moments before taking it into her own hands.

"As you have sagaciously pointed out, Chief Riju," Urbosa said, "I am no longer among the living, and so cannot receive a reward meant for them. Moreover, I bore no heirs during my lifetime, and so cannot request that my descendant be rewarded in my stead."

After a moment's jostling, Riju tucked the Thunder Helm under her right arm. "That being the case, you may name a beneficiary."

 _Oh._

Urbosa nodded. "Thank you, Chief. In that case, I name the Crown Princess of Hyrule, Zelda, who is the true daughter of—" Urbosa paused. This pause, Zelda felt, was not part of the ritual, and was accompanied by Urbosa looking down at the ground. "The true daughter of my dearest friend, and the daughter of my own heart."

Silence between the four, as Urbosa gathered herself and Riju tried to process what she'd been told and Zelda and Paya stood and watched like a captive audience.

"I would further request," Urbosa said, her tone softer, "that the reward you grant her be the truth."

That silence became hard, tangible, and Riju's brow drew together as she stared up at her predecessor. The eyes she turned toward Zelda were measuring, similarly hard.

Zelda, of course, said nothing.

"The truth, then." Riju breathed in, then out, then turned to face Zelda. "Princess, I imagine you will want time to speak to Urbosa in private."

She nodded in response.

"Good. She is not my ancestor, but I hope you will be able to ease her troubles. Regardless. The truth." Riju's whole face twisted, momentarily, into an almost ghoulish scowl—and then smoothed out, all at once, as if nothing had been wrong. "I will be returning to Gerudo Town. I ask that you two give me at least two hours before following. If you could circle around and approach from another direction, that would be doubly helpful."

To call that a surprise would not quite have covered it. Zelda tried to imagine what would cause such a request, found herself inadequate for the task. "I... I think we can do that, yes. May I ask why?"

Riju nodded. "As Urbosa has asked for the truth on your behalf, I will give it to you." The younger woman sighed. "If nothing else, this may make proceedings easier. Keeping these things secret always results in complications." She shook her head. "What was done here—no one in Gerudo Town can know of it. Insofar as the people are concerned, I was here alone, and I alone did battle with the Divine Beast, taming it with the power of my forebears."

Zelda blinked. Looked at Paya, who was staring gape-mouthed at the Chief of the Gerudo. Urbosa had lifted her head and crossed her arms, seemed to be taking in the three of them with a look that was equal parts tired and _proud_. Zelda turned her attention back to Riju. "We were not here at all?"

"No." Riju swept her hand between them, as if to clear the concept from the air. "You were not. You retrieved the Thunder Helm from the Yiga, and your magic fought against the magic of Ganon in the north; these things the people will learn in time. But the Gerudo will not be beholden to the kingdom of Hyrule; too many of our sorrows are tied up in the green fields you call home. You brought the Thunder Helm to me, and I used its power to purge Vah Naboris of the Malice that had driven it to madness."

Urbosa's voice was gentle: "Tell them why."

Riju bit her lower lip, then nodded. "Yes. You've... more than earned that. I owe it to you." She took another steadying breath. "I am young for a Chief. There have been some few younger than me, but none that actually governed. The people's faith in me, in the very identity of the Gerudo as a people, is shaken by my youth. And then you appeared, with your miraculous powers, and upended everything anew. Our guards are telling stories about you, right now, and the spectacular battle you had with Ganon in the heart of the Yiga Hideout—to say nothing of the light show that went on yesterday."

"'Light show' is very gentle language," Zelda said. She almost regretted it. Almost. Something bitter was sitting in the pit of her stomach. _Don't act on it yet._

"So it is. The point is that you appeared, and it was like Hylia had stepped out of legends to reassert herself over the world. You haven't spent as much time among the people as I would have liked, but do you know that in the entire city there is only one shrine to Hylia? _One_ , where once there stood nearly a hundred. Worship of the Seven, great heroes from an age long past, has supplanted worship of the Hylian goddess over the past centuries. It's..." She visibly struggled with this. "It's _important_. It's important in ways I can't communicate to you. The Gerudo used to have our own gods. We have forgotten their names, and all of their holy places are crumbled to dust, but they used to be ours. Over the millennia, the god of the Hylians supplanted ours—ours were too closely likened to Ganon, _blamed_ for Ganon, and our faiths, our identities, put us at odds with the other peoples of Hyrule. We had little choice but to take your goddess as our own. Do you see?"

The bitterness in Zelda's stomach had taken on a different weight. _I think I do._

"The Seven are like beacons for us. We worship those like ourselves, instead of those like you. So few of us think about it, but that change is so fundamental, so important to getting us back on a path to being ourselves and being _proud_ of ourselves, that I will not sacrifice it for anything. Not for fairness. Not for the truth." Riju placed her free hand on her hip, copying Urbosa's pose. "Not even for you, who just saved my life and my city. For this... I will not apologize."

The wind blew across the dunes, kicking dust into the air, and Zelda blinked at the image of Riju standing in the light of the sun, the Thunder Helm gleaming under her arm. Everything the Chief had just told her was true; everything the Chief had just told her was inarguable.

 _Who would I be if I—no. Do not think of it in terms of yourself, that is the same kind of self-centeredness that your people have shown towards hers since before history was recorded. Be humble. What use an oracle that does not know her place, or a god who does not know when to withdraw?_

Zelda cut a glance at Paya, so that when she bowed, deeply and formally with her hands clasped in front of her, Paya matched her.

She said, in the smoothest and most formal Gerudo she could muster, "Please excuse my intrusion, Great Chief. We will return to the city at dusk, and we will approach from the west, by your leave."

Riju inclined her head judiciously, her expression solemn, before answering in Gerudo: "You have it. I will be away, now." Another moment, another invisible struggle. "I will not bow in appreciation. Still, speaking only as myself... thank you."

Zelda did not raise her head or acknowledge the thanks; she held the bow until Riju stepped away, and then she heard the sound of Patricia's excited barking as the sand seal tore off across the desert, the Chief of the Gerudo in tow.

Only when that barking faded away did Zelda straighten, and then Paya after her. They did not climb the dune to watch Riju leave—that would have made them too visible, ruining the entire point of their staying behind—but they did look in the direction around which she would have disappeared.

Urbosa stepped in beside them. In Hylian: "She will be a good Chief, I think."

Zelda nodded.

Paya said, "I suspect that she already is."

The wind was calm, and the shadow of Vah Naboris was long across the desert.

* * *

Vah Naboris rose, on a scale that made its motions look ponderous and clumsy—though from the ground its speed, even its alacrity, were all too apparent. Watching it take step after measured step to the southeast, Zelda could not help wondering at the marvel that the ancients had made. How many kilometers could it cover in the course of an hour? A day? A sand seal could outpace it over the sands, but for how long? Could a horse in full gallop match it over flat terrain at all? A beast the size of a castle, carrying weapons fit to do battle with the Calamity, and watching it move... something inside of her felt very light.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Zelda flinched at Urbosa's voice, reached for something to say, felt her color rise when Urbosa laughed. "Please, don't be embarrassed. As much affection as I have for Vah Naboris—as much as I relish the thought of leveraging her against our enemy—I think my favorite thing about her has always been the way you look at her. The wonder in your eyes and the way you try to understand the things that other people don't think about at all. After a century, and so many trials, and so many changes... you are still so much the same, my Zelda. It does me good to see you again."

Zelda did not know how to respond that, to put words to the feeling of belonging that swept over her. _That_ feeling was almost completely alien to her, alien in a way that said it was almost alien to her past self, as well. She held it tightly against her, burying herself in it while outwardly watching Naboris make its towering way to the mountains to the south. Later, perhaps, she would try to unpack it. Right now she just wanted to enjoy it.

"Zelda," Urbosa said, and Zelda looked up to see that Urbosa's attention was elsewhere. "When will you introduce us?"

Paya was standing some ten meters away, scanning the horizon, pretending that there was anything she _could_ be doing to justify the distance physically separating them. _Is she trying to give me privacy? No, I don't think so. I think, right now, she's... embarrassed? Hm._

"Now, if you like." She raised her voice. "Paya!" The girl jumped, spun around instantly with wide eyes. "Would you mind joining us, for a moment? I'd like to formally introduce you."

The princess understood that there was a social pressure she was failing to pick up on as Paya made her way over, but for the life of her she could not narrow down what that might be. _I wish I was better at this sort of thing. Maybe I was, before._

"Paya, this is Lady Urbosa, former Chief of the Gerudo, who was dear to my mother and _is_ dear to me. Urbosa, this is Paya, from Kakariko Village, who has been my companion and protector on our long journey together."

Paya bowed, tripping over a greeting she could not quite get out, and Urbosa, smiling, filled the space: "I might have been able to guess. You are the very image of Impa from a century ago."

"O-Oh! Th-th-thank you." Paya bowed again. "I am most happy to be compared to my honored grandmother. A-and to make your acquaintance, Great Urbosa."

"And I yours. I owe you a debt of gratitude, it seems, for keeping watch over our princess." Urbosa's warm expression seemed to flash, shifting into a grin that might generously be described as predatory, like someone who has just spotted a person who would be very easy to tease. "You are being very shy toward me, Paya. May I ask why?"

Zelda had to fight the urge to leap to Paya's defense. "Urbosa—"

But Urbosa was impossible to resist, it seemed, and Paya had turned the color of sunburn beneath the shade of her hat. She cleared her throat, then did so again, before answering:

"Please excuse me for any rudeness. I-I am not very good around new people, and you have a... _strong_ personality."

Zelda wasn't sure how Urbosa would take that, didn't know what to expect; what she was _not_ expecting was for Urbosa to erupt in laughter, so strong and so lasting that the ghost actually held her sides, recalling the pains and limitations of a body she had left behind a century ago. It was nearly a full minute, the entire time during which Paya was alternating between staring in Urbosa in open terror and staring at her own feet in embarrassment, before the dead Chief regained enough control to reply:

"'Strong personality,' she says. Ah, you're right. You're right, of course." She wiped at her eyes, still chuckling. "I'm sorry, that was rude of me. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Truly, I don't."

"Please don't give it any thought. I-in truth, I've actually been thinking about heading northeast ahead of Zelda, to secure the route." She bowed again, pre-emptive in her apology. "It is not that I do not enjoy your company or wish to speak with you more! B-but, Zelda plainly cares about you a great deal, and you about her, and the two of you haven't had the opportunity to speak in so long, so..."

It had been a long day; it had been a long week; in spite of how much had been piled on top of her, how much she had been made to feel in the past... how many weeks had the two of them been traveling together, anyway? However many it was, however much her emotional capacity had been stretched in that time, something in what Paya said there stung at the back of Zelda's throat and made her sinuses burn. It was a simple thing, but it struck her in its tenderness.

This was not betrayed in her voice or demeanor: "That is very kind of you, Paya. You do not have to do such a thing, of course, but I appreciate the thought."

Urbosa's measuring stare was like a physical thing filling the air between the three of them; the dead Chief actually placed her hand under her chin as she turned something over in her head. "Paya," she said, "I would like to talk with you more in the future."

"O-of course, Lady Urbosa."

"Good. Thank you. In that case, I hope that you will forgive me for taking you up on that offer. I will not keep her too long, but you are right: it has been a very long time, and I would dearly appreciate having her to myself, just for a while."

Zelda, in that moment, had the sense that Urbosa and Paya were genuinely working this out between the two of them. She wasn't being excluded from the decision-making process, exactly; rather, they were (knowingly on Urbosa's part and probably unknowingly on Paya's) removing the pressure of needing to manage her attentions between the two of them. She had a sense that she should have been offended, maybe even pushed back against this just for the sake of making her voice heard, but as soon as she thought it she became tired.

Yes. Yes, she would go along with this, happily. She wanted to talk to Urbosa alone, too.

Urbosa walked Paya over to the sand seals, and the taller woman spoke to the shorter for twenty seconds. Paya nodded several times during this, said something to the ground, and raised her hand in acknowledgment of Zelda as she mounted her shield behind the seal. Zelda waved back, and then Paya was off, sailing quickly over the sands, rounding a dune and disappearing.

Urbosa returned, and she and Zelda stood in silence for a time, both watching the place where Paya had last been.

After a long time, Urbosa said: "Little bird. How much do you remember?"

The wall of her amnesia protected her from something, some loss and grief that she was _reasonably_ sure would kill her as she was now. It buckled, however slightly, at Urbosa's words.

"Enough." She breathed. "No. Not enough. But I remember when you came for me outside Kara Kara Bazaar. And I remember when we traveled to the spring together, and you fished me out of the water. I remember thinking—"

Urbosa was a ghost, but for Zelda her hands were solid and warm. She was turned, gently, to face the dead Chief, and pulled into a firm embrace. _She never would have done this while we were alive. She would have tried to maintain a distance between us. For her. For me._

Zelda returned the embrace. Held onto Urbosa as tightly as she could, as if letting the Chief go would see her vanish, as if by the strength of her grip she could stretch out this moment forever.

 _I wouldn't have done this either. How foolish we are with the people we love._

She closed her eyes. Was teased by memory. The smell of Urbosa's perfume was in the air, as real as if she was physically present, and the wave of nostalgia that washed over her then would have knocked her to the ground if Urbosa hadn't held her up.

 _She was a mother to me. Is, still._

There. That was true. That felt good to know. To acknowledge.

After another long time, Urbosa's grip loosened, and the two of them released each other. Zelda was proud of her own dry eyes until Urbosa stood, not hiding her happiness and her grief as she wiped at her tears. Seeing that, how open Urbosa was with how she felt in this moment, made Zelda feel ashamed of her own reservation.

 _But she understands._

"Thank you, little bird. I've spent a century wanting to hold you again. There is so much I want to tell you, to share with you, to ask you, that I could take up your time for days... but I can't. You have so much that still needs doing. People who need rescuing." Her voice hardened: "Evils that need vanquishing."

Zelda nodded.

"I won't keep you. As much as I want to, I won't. But I can't bear to send you away, either. So, understand that I ask this for my benefit as much as yours: do you have any questions for me?"

Laughter bubbled up inside of her, and she managed to fight it down before it burst forth. _Do I have questions? I am_ composed _of question, as if they are written on every cell of my body._ She marshaled this feeling, not smothering it but reining it in until it was manageable. She picked one point of curiosity out of an ocean.

"What did you say to Paya, just now?"

The answer came instantly: "I thanked her for protecting you up to now. I asked her to _keep_ protecting you where I cannot, even if the idea of protecting you seemed ridiculous." Urbosa quirked a grin. "I told her to hold fiercely to her love, and never let the impossibility of it deter her."

All right! Well! Fine then! "Is it that obvious?"

"It couldn't _be_ more obvious. That child might as well be carrying a sign everywhere she goes. Even Riju sees it, and she's definitely no more experienced in these things than Paya is. Except in reading stories about it, maybe."

 _Riju sees it? What does she mea—_

Several things slid into place, words said seemingly in passing and questions leading down unexpected avenues coming together to paint a picture clearer than she would have been able to see on her own.

Zelda nodded, scowling. "I see."

Urbosa laughed again.

Eager to change the subject, Zelda groped through the mound of questions piled up inside of her skull. _I don't have to ask about our relationship—I understand that well enough. I want to ask about my mother, but... I think I know how that will make her feel, too, and what it will call to mind for her._

Then: "Urbosa, did you hate my father?"

The laughter stopped, a fire going out when doused in sand, and Urbosa turned her head very slowly toward Zelda. The space left by that question stretched out, and out, and out.

"Daruk has been wagging his tongue, I see." Her tone suggested that he needed chastising.

 _She figured it out so fast! Does that mean he was her confidant?_

"W-well, he did mention _something_ of the kind, but it was a century ago. At the ceremony that we held for Link? Hardly something he could be blamed for now. In fact, I was actually reminded of it by the memory of us at the spring together." The words were tumbling out in a rush that she wasn't sure she would be able to keep under control. Was actively failing to control. Never mind. If Urbosa had seen her throw up, there wasn't much room for embarrassment anymore. "I was too young to understand, then. When you came to the castle, I heard you shouting in the audience chamber, and I thought you were angry with _me_."

"Angry with _you_?" Urbosa tilted her head, seemed to search through her memory, then her face lit up and she grinned. "Oh, yes, I remember that. Rhoam," and she let that name roll off of her tongue specifically because it included no title and she plainly relished the disrespect, which even through the walls of Zelda's amnesia made her hair stand on end, "had it in his head that you would be accompanied by a unit of guards who would ensure that you were not disturbed, and that you would be appropriately guided as to the proper form of prayer. As if that fool had any idea what _proper form_ meant."

"I see," Zelda said, again, and she realized she was repeating herself and it sounded like she wasn't listening but _surely_ it was obvious she was listening.

Again the dead Chief laughed. "Your father was typical of men who come into power and responsibility that they aren't prepared for and can't understand, perfectly confident in his own expertise despite having no reason to _be_ confident. Yes, I hated him. I tolerated him for your mother's sake, and then for yours, but he never appreciated the burden that the women of your family carry." She paused. "Maybe that wasn't completely his fault; the secret of the Queens of Hyrule was carefully guarded. But he could not perceive his own ignorance, and _that_ damned the nation. He was an unthinking husband. He was an irresponsible king. He was an atrocious father." Urbosa grinned. "It felt so good to let loose in front of him, to see his courtiers cowering. I wish I had done it more often." She sighed, wistful. "Well. One more regret for the pile."

Silence again as Zelda digested Urbosa's short speech. She could imagine the scene now, Urbosa shouting in anger, guards staring at each other in panic as advisors looked to the king. She imagined one manicured finger pointing as her father gripped the armrests of the throne until his fingers turned white.

It was funny, now, how she thought of him: not as a king but as a ghost.

 _I think that I connected with him more after his death than I ever did during our life together. What a sad, lonely existence._

Was that too generous? Too gentle? Something inside of her suggested, not without venom, that she should think of him as harshly as Urbosa did, that she should stand in judgment of him as Daruk had. She found it hard, though. A hundred years watching the world burn, a century unable to act while standing a lonely vigil over what might have been his daughter's tomb, and then to be an utter stranger when she rises once more.

 _I pity him,_ she realized. And, yes, pity was all she had inside of her. Not love, not anger, not even regret. Just pity. Pity for a man who was not strong enough to be who the world demanded of him and not good enough to make up the difference with the people he genuinely loved.

 _And now he is gone, and I can do nothing more to bridge that gap._

The thought was a shock running up her spine, and she looked up at Urbosa.

"What will happen if we defeat Ganon?"

"'If,' she says." Urbosa shook her head. " _When_ you defeat Ganon... you're asking if the Champions will remain. If we can be your ghostly entourage."

She hadn't meant that, not in those words, but Zelda nodded anyway.

"No. As much as I want that—as much as I want to see you finish growing up in a world that doesn't have the Calamity's shadow hanging over it—that won't be possible." She did not soften the blow through her tone, which was matter-of-fact, almost hard. "We were bound to the Divine Beasts by Ganon's evil, and now we are anchored to the world by the oaths we swore. Once those oaths are fulfilled, everything holding us here will be gone."

Zelda's own voice, speaking words that came out before she could think them: "You'll leave me again." _Where did that come from?_ "I'm sorry. I don't mean that. I can't think of... I can't." _Control yourself. In this, if in nothing else._

Urbosa laid a warm, firm hand on her shoulder. She did not draw her into an embrace again; that touch was meant to transmit strength.

"Zelda. Little bird. You _cannot_ blame yourself for what happened to us."

She didn't answer. Couldn't. Then Urbosa was kneeling in front of her, staring at her with the same open concern as a hundred and ten years ago.

"We are dead, Zelda. All of us. But that is not your fault. It is not Link's fault. It's not your father's. It is Ganon's." She sighed. "Do you want to know what I think, having had a hundred years to reflect?"

She nodded.

"This—all of this—is how things had to happen. What we've suffered, what _you've_ suffered, is all to serve a greater purpose. That might not make things easier, but it is what I believe." With her free hand she took one of Zelda's. "I am so proud of the woman you've become. The strength with which you shoulder your burdens, the way you look to the future, your willingness to turn to others for help... you are all I've ever wanted for you. The only thing more I can ask is that you be happy."

"That is asking a lot," Zelda croaked.

"I know. I know..." The hand on Zelda's shoulder moved to Zelda's cheek, the thumb wiping at one of her eyes. "But when the battle is over, when I am gone, I will leave this world with _no_ regrets. And when you say goodbye to me, when we are truly parted? I don't want you to have any, either."

 _I will carry these regrets with me always. I will not let myself forget again._

 _She wants me to let go of my guilt—even the guilt I can't remember._

 _It wasn't my fault._

 _Wasn't it?_

 _Who would have more right to be aggrieved than Urbosa? Who can absolve me, if not her?_

 _There are so many dead by Ganon's hand. She can't speak for them all._

 _You don't grieve for all of the dead. You grieve for these few that you loved._

That was true. It should have made her ashamed, but it was true. What a small, petty, personal thing, but it was an anchor. It kept her in place.

"I am not asking you to forget," Urbosa said. She withdrew the hand on Zelda's cheek. Rubbed her fingers together before placing them against her chest. "Remember always, if you must. Let that memory guide you. But when regret pulls at you, and you think you will drown, remember that you are loved. Though I am no longer with you, my love will buoy you." She drew her fingers away, and with it came an orb of light and thunder, softly crackling. "Though I cannot protect you, my fury will be at your beck and call."

Zelda took Urbosa's power and drew it into her own chest. There was a rush as it infused her, coursed through her—and there _was_ fury in it, the potential for change both subtle and radical, tinged by Urbosa's warmth and love and rage.

 _So many people need so many things from me._

 _She only wants me to be well. Is that so much?_

 _The more I remember the harder this is. The more I become the person I was, the more I share in her pains._

 _I can't turn away from that pain. Mipha was, and is, right. Is letting go of them the same thing?_

 _Why is it so hard to imagine Ganon being gone?_

 _If this ends, won't I be free?_

Silence. Silence coursing around her and through her, comforting and cool, like wind over the dunes.

Zelda imagined how it would be to stand in the light of the day, the sun warm on her skin, under a clear sky in a world where Ganon did not exist. She nodded to Urbosa, who had been a mother to her in another life.

"I will have no regrets."

For the first time in more than a century Urbosa truly smiled, and it was radiant.


	42. The Hero and the Princess

When Vah Naboris found its place on the mountain range, when Urbosa returned to her vigil on the Divine Beast, when its crimson light was trained on the heart of Hyrule Castle, Zelda rode out and met Paya in the desert. They spent an hour in companionable silence, each keeping their own counsel, and at sunset they rode for Gerudo Town.

They arrived to almost incomparable jubilation; in spite of the light damage that was still visible throughout the town, every woman there gathered, be they Gerudo or otherwise, was involved in the massive celebration lauding Riju's triumph over the monster that had plagued the Divine Beast. The two of them made their way through the crowd, to the inn, where their room was still being held for them. Well, they assumed it was, anyway. The proprietors were outside, partaking of the festivities. They slept the sleep of the justly exhausted.

The next day, they were retrieved by a messenger from the Chief, and asked to report to the audience chamber as quickly as possible. Paya was mystified; Zelda, suspecting that Riju knew they were intending to leave, made sure that their bags were packed, though they did not bring them.

As once before, the chamber had only four figures in it: Riju, Buliara, Zelda, and Paya. The other guards had been dismissed some time before, though two remained outside of the door, just close enough to hear. They would, Zelda surmised, serve as the vector for the contents of this meeting to spread among the other guards, and from there to the populace.

Riju spoke to them briefly, thanking them for their aid in the retrieval of the Thunder Helm.

She said, "It may even be that, without your help, the means for taming the Divine Beast might not have been regained without a great deal more bloodshed. For this, Princess of Hyrule, the Gerudo are thankful."

There was a moment—just a moment—where the shock of Riju speaking openly of Zelda's identity left the Hylian girl stunned.

 _She knows the guards will spread this. Soon every Gerudo in the town will know, perhaps before the end of the day. But she_ wants _it that way. The Yiga are all dead. Does she surmise that the danger to my person is lessened? Or is that not really the point?_

"Now that the Divine Beast has been tamed, there are no immediate threats that face Gerudo Town. And so, as you have lent the Gerudo your strength, the Gerudo will lend you our own." She motioned with her hand, and Buliara retrieved the Thunder Helm from its raised dais. "The Thunder Helm contains the power of our ancestors, and all the strength of our long-held grudge against Ganon. In the name of the Great Urbosa, and for all the Gerudo who have struggled against the Calamity's timeless evil, bear the Thunder Helm as a symbol of our renewed sisterhood. I am sure that it will be a great help in bringing the beast to its knees."

Zelda had trouble keeping up with how many layers of conversation Riju was carrying on; the messages she meant to convey to Zelda and Paya were certainly different from those being communicated to the guards outside, and different again from Buliara, and different _still_ from the secret truths the Chief was reserving only for herself.

The question almost asked itself: "You have only just regained this power, Great Chief. Can it be safely lent out?"

Riju's answering smirk would have been haughty, save for its thoughtfulness. "The Yiga have been neutralized, and the Divine Beast Vah Naboris is once more the ally of our people. As of now, your need is greater than ours. Should some new threat arise..."

Here, Riju held up her hand. Here was the real reason no guards were present: they could not see how her expression twisted with effort, eyes squeezed shut as she held her thumb against the pad of her middle finger, sweat glistening on her brow and nose. Power gathered in the room, a _whisper_ of power that built slowly to a word. Riju was shaking with the effort of summoning it, much less marshaling it.

The Chief of the Gerudo snapped her fingers.

The sound of the lightning bolt that blazed to life and winked out between her fingers was small, like the bolt itself, there and gone—but it echoed in the acoustics of the audience chamber, rumbling like the promise of a storm.

Riju nearly slumped into her chair, then straightened her posture. "...We will be able to attend to it."

So were Zelda and Paya granted the Thunder Helm. Buliara, expressionless, wordlessly gave to them the armaments of the Great Urbosa: the Scimitar of the Seven and Daybreaker, the finest short sword and shield in the realm. They were granted their leave, and left. They did not look to the guards, who were nearly vibrating with the enormity of what they'd heard, as if they'd been charged by the lightning that Riju had summoned.

The pair returned to the inn, retrieved their packs, and set out from town. No one paid particular mind to them as they went, though word was spreading quickly behind them.

* * *

There was always the understanding, between Zelda and Paya, that they would need to devote time to tracking down the rest of the locations where Zelda had apparently recorded her memories. They spent some time talking about that, as they walked under the morning light, stopping briefly in Kara Kara Bazaar. Talking to Mipha and Urbosa, thinking of Daruk, nearly meeting Link, all of these things had convinced Zelda that she needed to gather those memories as quickly as possible. She would expand her powers, reaching out to be something nearer to her previous self, regardless of what that would bring.

Paya would keep her anchored. For all that they feared for one another, they were more willing to fight than to surrender. There was no more talk of Paya going home; the subject was discarded, though not forgotten.

After they were done talking, Zelda activated the Sheikah Slate and they left the desert behind. They went to the plains, first.

* * *

"Tomorrow is my seventeenth birthday. So then I shall go... and make my way up the mountain."

It was so hard to read his expressions, even now, even after all the time they'd spent together and how much he had proven his trustworthiness—and his trust in her. He didn't flinch, or scowl, or even blink expressively. A moment after she spoke, he nodded slowly.

Probably he had already known. He knew a great deal more about her than she would have suspected; serving her, traveling with her, was a task that he had approached with the same precision and thoroughness as everything else in his life. Should that have made her feel strange? It didn't, she supposed. More, it made her feel comfortable. Why hide things from someone who had seen you at your lowest, and who knew so much about you?

"Well then," she said, "we shall be meeting the Champions tomorrow, outside of Kakariko Village. Shall we make camp now, or should we continue on?"

His answer was instant, as it always was when she put a choice before him: "I'll set up camp."

"As you say."

He moved quickly, as he always did. Not hurried—she didn't think he was capable of hurrying unless he had a sword in his hand—but so efficient that he didn't need to be quick. The fire was made before she could sit down, and her tent set up before she had finished warming her hands. Watching him fascinated her: his economy of motion, the way that he expressed his strength to make mundane tasks easier and faster than they would be for most people. But there was practice, too, a familiarity with bivouacking that must have been built up over years. He was used to her staring, by now, and thankfully did not mind.

He set the cook pot on the fire and fell to preparing their evening meal with his usual flair and relish. Rock salt was added to fresh rice, and the sting of Goron spice filled the air before he began mixing in green vegetables and herbs.

She wrinkled her nose. She didn't really _like_ spicy food. He knew she didn't. She wanted to say something but held back.

It took only minutes for him to present her with a lovely plate of vegetable curry served over rice. Her first bite was hesitant, and she braced herself for the mounting fire that was part and parcel of Goron spice—but it never came. She couldn't guess what, but something that he'd done with the seasoning, with the way the herbs mingled with the spices, had reduced the heat enough that she could tolerate it.

"Thank you," she said. "It's delicious."

He beamed. His cooking was one of the few things he ever allowed himself to express happiness about, and that only around her.

She ate with relish. There was a delicate bitterness to the vegetables that was countermanded by the curry, lending the entire dish an almost lusciously fresh feel. It was filling, but eating it also made her feel _lighter_. She stirred the rice into the curry, then kept eating until there was nothing left.

She was, in fact, so distracted by her dinner that she almost failed to notice that Link had not stopped cooking. He must have cleaned out the cooking pot, because now he was preparing something else—something she couldn't see, owing to the lid he had placed on top of the pot. Was he steaming something? Whatever it was, he was _very_ focused on it, crouched next to the pot, staring at it, reading some signs from the hearth that she was not versed in.

Almost as if he could hear her thoughts, he looked up and blinked at her.

"I'm sorry," he said, "would you look away for a moment?"

Now it was her turn to blink. Anyone else and she would be rankled by the request, not just because it was demanding something of her but because she hated to be kept out of things.

Anyone else.

"Of course," she said, turning her head to the side. She closed her eyes, too, just for good measure.

The moment her lids fell shut she heard him whip off the lid and scrape the interior of the pot with... was that a plate? No, too small. A fork? A spoon? She couldn't tell. What followed was a flurry of sound and motion, some metal-on-wood scrapes and a great deal of much softer impacts, almost impossible to hear over the crackling of the fire. She had shifted over from being confused to actively wondering about what he could be doing when she felt him, more than heard him, kneeling beside her.

"You can look now," he said.

She did, carefully turning her head rather than her body so as not to knock against whatever it was he was holding.

And she stopped short, and stared, and blinked.

The plate he held was standard military issue, unassuming metal that had been slowly darkened by years of holding portable, non-perishable meals. Her eyes were stuck on the plate, just for a second.

In the middle of that plate was a delicate-looking slice of layered cake. The cake itself was very lightly colored, and its two layers were separated by whipped cream in which was set fresh wildberries. The cake was topped with that same cream and decorated with sliced wildberry, shaved roasted apple, and delicately-portioned pieces of banana. It was like something out of a cookbook. It was something she would have been impressed by if she'd been served it in the _castle_.

 _How did he make this out here? How did he know that I like fruit cakes? Did he ask the chef? How? Why did he—_

She asked none of these things. She blinked at the cake, then slowly raised her eyes to look at him. He wasn't grinning, now. He was serious, as serious as he was about almost everything.

"We may not have the chance tomorrow," he said. He inclined his head to her. "Happy birthday."

It was the first time she'd heard those words in... longer than she could remember.

She took the plate from him. He took up his own—piled high with the scraps he'd cut away to make the presentation of her piece as nice as it was—and the two of them ate cake together in the light of the fire.

* * *

The greatest danger in this journey to reclaim the past was how the past had changed. Zelda and Paya both understood that the world had been stilled somewhat in the wake of the Calamity, like a person lying dazed on the ground after being struck on the head. Still, like that body, the world moved. It lived. It breathed. It bled.

They had been avoiding the memory that lay waiting in a corner of Hyrule Castle. There were too many dangers, they had agreed. Ganon might detect Zelda, and then the entire journey would be for naught, battle joined too early. There might still be monsters lurking in the ramparts, though the reports of those brave and foolish adventurers who had plundered the castle for treasure suggested that only the Guardians stood watch over it. The sound of the Hero battling Ganon was reportedly otherworldly, like an army of ghosts locked in eternal battle with each other, falling and rising and fighting and falling without cease. To come near to such a battle, to be within range of it, to know its physical reality when Zelda had worked so hard to distance herself from it—that was its own danger, too.

But they could not avoid it forever. There was power waiting there, _Zelda's_ power, and she would not be complete without it. After retrieving the memory of her birthday celebration, Zelda decided that now would be the time. She had enough control that she could hide herself from Ganon, as Ganon had hidden itself from her a century before. But they had to be careful. They had to be prepared.

The only living person who was intimately familiar with the architecture of Hyrule Castle was Impa, and so they sought her advice in Kakariko Village. The elder did not even have to look at the photograph; she had glimpsed its contents briefly during their prior visit, and had marked it as taking place on the walk that linked Zelda's bedroom to her laboratory. She provided them with a map, based on the last observed damage to the castle's structure, and with this they planned their advance.

* * *

Imagine the oracle of Hylia, the princess of Hyrule, standing outside of the massive iron gate that marked what was once an impenetrable line of defense protecting the royal family from monstrous forces. She and her companion both wore stealth suits, both of them holding to the shadows to keep out of the eyes of the Guardian sentries—she could have turned the weapons to her side, yes, but even that miniscule flexing of the power might have been dangerous while so close to Ganon.

Imagine looking up at the face of the place that had once been home, and feeling not an inkling, not a _ripple_ , of the meaning that the place must once have had. She had known Urbosa before she remembered; she knew Link more than her memory told; she knew the voice of the goddess before she had ceased to dream; but when she looked up at the gate of Hyrule Castle, she felt nothing. That emptiness was a terrible, yawning thing.

Imagine the messenger of the royal family, the princess's attendant, standing behind her charge. Watching. Waiting. Wondering. She knew the path they would take, how to reach the fated rampart while minimizing their exposure to Guardians, but she thought very little about that as Zelda stared up at the gate. You see, she was—as was often the case—thinking about Zelda. The oracle's ears were stopped up with wax so that she could not hear the din of the Hero's struggle against the darkness. As strong as she was, as brave as she was, as _wise_ as the world needed her to be, Zelda still did not fully trust herself to resist the challenge of her heart. Paya was under very strict orders, both from Zelda and from her grandmother, to make sure that Zelda did not fall to battle with the Calamity before she was ready. It was why Paya was wearing the Sheikah Slate on her hip. It was why she was planning the best way to subdue a person with effectively limitless strength. It was why she could not focus on anything else at all.

She could hear the battle, you see. Zelda's earplugs mercifully ( _hopefully_ ) blocked out the sound of it, but Paya could hear steel ringing on steel. The earth shook constantly underfoot, as if Hyrule Castle had a heartbeat, but Paya could draw the correlation between the shaking and the sounds that reached her a moment later. The power of those exchanges... she could not think of it.

Zelda nodded, and Paya used the Magnesis rune to open the gate.

They moved swiftly and silently, keeping low and to the shadows, with Paya in the lead. They made for the interior of the castle, taking the front path because it was littered with the destroyed remains of the Guardians that had attempted to interfere with the Hero as he drove Ganon back into its prison. It would have been faster to approach from the southwest, to climb up through the castle's dungeons, but that path had many more intact sentries and they could not run the risk of fighting them.

Many times did Paya look back to make sure that Zelda was still there. Many times did Zelda nod. There was no building impatience between them; Paya was justified in her caution, and Zelda was justified in hers, too. They would not have blamed each other if things had gone down dark paths.

When they reached the level of their destination Paya believed she could hear Link's voice beneath the din. She could not be sure, of course; she did not know what he sounded like. But there was something there, an exhalation that kept in perfect rhythm with the ringing of the sword, faster than a heartbeat. She thought that it was him. She prayed that Zelda could not hear.

They passed through the room that had once been Zelda's.

Neither felt anything there, though they spent a moment looking around. The room was spacious and fine, and there was a spectacular bow hanging above a dilapidated fireplace that they took for their use. Otherwise there was nothing that spoke to either of them. Zelda was not the woman who had lived in this room; Paya did not know that woman, either. The princess found a diary on a desk, traced her fingers across the cover, and left it undisturbed. Apparently, the record of her past heartache was the one thing about which she was incurious.

Zelda stopped by the door leading out onto the connecting path, looked over her shoulder at Paya, and said, "I'm going to remove the wax."

Paya crossed the space between them before the word "wax" was out of Zelda's mouth, grabbing her charge's wrists and pinning them to the wall. She had four or five options for subduing Zelda, was hesitating because she had to pick one, had to do this without hurting her—

"I've been able to hear him the entire time."

Stillness, in that room. _She is very clever and she may be trying to argue her way out of this_ put her down _—_

But when she spoke, Zelda's voice did not waver. Her expression was pained, though not panicked. "He is exhaling every time he strikes. Inhaling on the off-beat. He is not vocalizing otherwise. But the leather of his gloves is creaking on the grip of the sword. He still has his boots, and the heels are hard when they strike the ground. I don't know how they haven't worn away. And—and I don't know how he—"

It went against every impulse of Paya's training, but in the end she had to obey the demand of her heart, and she released Zelda's wrists before stepping away. She did not apologize. She watched. She had to be careful.

Zelda reached up, removed the wax plugs from her ears, and tilted her head. Closed her eyes. Listened, with the same pained expression.

"I'm sorry. I should have told you before—I've been able to hear him since we came to the gate, as if he fills this entire castle. The _fighting_ is so loud... I hadn't realized. There's so much I hadn't realized."

"Zelda—"

The oracle held up her hand, shook her head. "No. I will not go to him. I can't. Revali is still waiting for us. I haven't recovered my memories. I don't have the power under control." She took one long, shaky breath. "I'm not ready."

She went out through the door. Paya followed her.

Zelda no longer needed the visual references from the Sheikah Slate, not really. She found the spot where the picture had been taken, looked around for a moment, and then a golden light shone from her eyes.

Zelda remembered.

Paya waited, facing the Sanctum, arms crossed, ready to act should the castle shift under their feet.

* * *

"Heir to a throne of nothing... nothing but failure."

More words were exchanged. Small things, token things, delivered with the kind of regretful expression that told her that her father really did regret this, was weighed down by this with the commensurate scale on which a king could be burdened. She barely heard the words. She responded, "I understand," because that was always the thing to say. King Rhoam Bosphoramous Hyrule, her father who she had not seen smile in ten years, whose warmest affection for her was only pity, nodded, and turned, and left. Through her room, because that was the only way to reach this bridge.

The king's guard followed him. The door shut.

 _A throne of failure_ , she thought, staring at that door.

She felt, more than heard, as Link rose from his kneeling position. As Zelda's personal guard he would one day have more authority than the dowager king, but until then the Hero was just like her—beholden to purposes and forces that were well beyond her control, whether they understood or not.

 _No. I can't wallow in unfairness. The world doesn't care about unfairness. Ganon certainly doesn't._

"I wish," she said, surprising herself by the sound of her own voice, "that I could argue with him. That I had the right words to convince him of..." She reached for the word, or even the idea that she had been seeking, and found nothing. She shouldn't have started talking. Another dead-end. "It is worse now, I think. The Calamity is drawing nearer, and even as we prepare ourselves for its return, as we arm the kingdom with the wonders of an age long past and bolster our knowledge with ancient secrets that could have _celestial_ implications, the world revolves around my inability to wake the power of my foremothers." She was clenching her fists again, she realized. She willed them to relax.

Link said nothing. No one could ever accuse him of being anything except a fantastic listener, and he could be forthcoming on a number of subjects, but on this one matter he could not help her.

 _That makes sense, doesn't it? No one can._

"Princess," he said, and Link's voice at that moment was such a shock that she turned to look at him. "Would you like to retire to your laboratory?"

Ah. He was trying to help her into a place where she could feel safer, more secure, less likely to be intruded upon. And that was fair—her father had only stepped foot into her laboratory once, two years ago, and been so taken aback by the diagrams and formulae on display that he had never set foot in there again, regardless of his mood. It was still a laboratory, now, but it was more of a sanctuary.

Perhaps she needed sanctuary.

"Yes," she said. "I have preparations to make before we travel to Akkala."

He moved ahead of her, holding the door and shutting it behind them.

The air in the laboratory was cooler and sweeter than the air outside, redolent with research-dust and wilting flowers. She ignored that, all of it, for the moment that she stood in the center of the lab and looked around. There were mistakes to be corrected, which was something she relished.

Based on her observations from today, she had miscalculated the top speed at which the different segments of a Guardian could independently rotate—sometimes in opposite directions. She walked over to a blackboard, taking up a piece of chalk and adding new figures while changing others. It was an interesting discovery to make, because it implied that the power core and the actuators driving the rotation weren't a closed system, otherwise the weapons wouldn't be able to fire while they were out of alignment. Perhaps there were only certain alignments that could be utilized for deployment of the weapon systems? But no, even then there would need to be an open system on the base level so that the dependent parts could latch onto them from any direction.

Her new notes filled up most of a blackboard, and she cleaned a second one to fill up with her mechanical theories.

"There's still so much to learn," she said to Link, who was listening very well, as was his wont. "Do you know that our tools aren't really up to the task of dissembling the guardians? One would think that with machinery that complex one could take them apart along seams or points of structural weakness or even just by undoing the fasteners that were used to finish their assembly, but from the outside there don't seem to _be_ any. We've known the entire time that their _material_ construction was beyond our modern means, but it's only recently come to light that their _method_ of construction is perhaps even more advanced. It's not enough that no weapon in the kingdom—save yours, I would venture—is capable of piercing their armor, but that the armor has been put together by means we can't discern? It's _fabulous_. It suggests that there were construction and manufacturing methods in use—"

And she went on like that, lost in her own ideas, lost in the security of having someone who at least _pretended_ to like listening to her. Purah wasn't here, and Robbie wasn't here, but Link could do in a pinch.

Yes. Yes, of course she was using this as an escape, and all escapes were temporary, and the very temporariness of that escape gnawed at her thoughts as she went through new equations and possible manufacturing implements. She could stay that away, though. Just for a little while. Just while Link was willing to listen.

She went through an entire piece of chalk, and her fingertips were covered in it. She set the chalk down, turned—and Link was already standing there, a basin of warm water and a towel in his hands. She thanked him, washed her hands, and took her seat at her desk.

For an hour she wrote in her research journal, recording the minutia of her observations, tried desperately not to color it with her personal feelings. The last thing she needed was a second diary. This document was separate from the one in her room; maybe it was separate from herself, too.

 _Certainly it is separate from what the people need from me._

Little thoughts, tiny things but still noticeable, intruded on her concentration from every angle. She pushed them aside, insistent though they were. This was her space. This was her time. However little of it she had, she would make use of it.

Then she ran out. Of thoughts to put down, of energy, and of time.

She closed her research journal, sat back in her chair, and sighed.

Because it was always the first place she looked, she inspected the Silent Princess standing in the lone flowerpot on her desk. Like the other specimens she had attempted to cultivate, it was wilting—no amount of sunlight, no variance in watering or nutrients she fed them seemed able to change the course of fate for these flowers. This particular specimen she had potted herself, using the earth that the flower had grown in, and maintained the hydration and ambient temperature of the field where it had sprouted. It _should_ have worked. That the flower was still dying might have been indicative that it was relying on an essential element only present in the wild earth, and that by being removed from the earth it was no longer accessing that essential, wild energy.

She scowled at it.

"It feels like you are a very blunt metaphor," she said to the sagging blossom.

"Princess?" Link's confusion was, as usual, carefully restrained.

"Nothing. Never mind." She sighed again. "Do you know where we are headed next?"

"The Spring of Power."

"Yes. I suspect that it will be a very long trip."

"We should depart soon?"

"That is probably the best course of action. If possible, I would like to leave in the morning. Early in the morning."

Link paused. "The King usually rises with the dawn."

There was a moment where filial piety warred with everything else inside of her—and won, because it had never lost.

"It would not do to leave without bidding my father farewell. Shall we aim for an hour after sunrise?"

Another, longer pause. Something in this pause was almost electric, and she had to fight the urge to stare at her guardian.

"The King has said that you are to focus only on your training."

"Are you suggesting," and she tried to sound dangerous, or even offended, "that his decree is that my duty to awaken the sealing power of my ancestors should supersede even my duties to him as my father or my king?"

"Yes." No pause that time. No excitement, either. His affirmations were always blunt, and firm, and very precisely aimed.

"You make a compelling argument. In that case, I will rely on your preparations. Certainly it would be best to bid my father farewell before I leave on this journey, but if the Hero himself feels that the kingdom is best served by my leaving an hour before sunrise... well."

Link nodded.

The two of them stood in the quiet for a while. It was a comfortable quiet. Quiet around him was always comfortable.

 _I need his help in so much. Even in defying my own father, even in the smallest of things, I need his help. And he gives me that help, wholly and without hesitation. It is so easy to think of him as a face, as a sword—but he is a person. A_ good _person, in a way that so few are._

 _I must answer that goodness. I must._

"Link," she said, and his attention was like a physical force. "It is possible that, after we travel, I still will not have awakened the sealing power. If I'm being honest with myself, that seems like the most _likely_ outcome, as defeatist as that might sound." Thankfully, he did not interrupt her, did not try to assuage her fears or brighten her anticipation. "If that should be the case... if I've tried everything and gained nothing... you have my permission to leave my service."

Silence. Silence like his old silence, silence that was almost fearful. She rose, walked to the door. Did not look at him.

"You are the Hero; you have been identified as such by the Master Sword. When the time comes, if I'm incapable... then for Hyrule's sake, you must seek another answer. Something that is outside of my blood. I suspect..." She breathed. "I suspect that my blood is no proof of worthiness. Not in the way I would have wished."

She stepped back into the light of day. He followed her, but she never looked back. She could imagine the look on his face.

She never actually saw, of course. Never saw the way his eyes took in the entire environment, and especially her, and how he tilted his head as if considering the sword on his back.

* * *

There was a place, south of Hyrule Castle, on the edge of the Western Necluda range. Atop a hill sat a tree, and from that hill one had a pleasant view of much of the surrounding landscape: the bridge that spanned Lake Hylia, the Dueling Peaks, and lush green fields in every direction. There had been monsters dotting the plains before, but the recovery of the Guardians and the cessation of the Bleeding Earth had reduced their populations so thoroughly that, by now, there was very little of them left.

Paya had spent a great deal of time thinking about that. The last Bleeding Earth had been some time ago, long before the destruction of the Yiga Fortress; they were overdue by several days, now. Zelda had theories about this discrepancy, mostly related to Link, but had concerned herself mostly with theory. Paya, however, had been thinking about the practical side of the problem, and what it meant for the rest of their journey.

Over time, the erosion of the monster population would slow down, and then dwindle to a stop; as powerful as the Guardians were, there were probably certain monsters that they could not effectively fight unless they attacked in groups, and there did not seem to be a unifying intelligence coordinating them to take down, say, however many lynels were wandering the plains. Bokoblins and moblins were being wiped out in all areas that had Guardians in them, and in approaching the castle Zelda and she had both noted that Hyrule Field was nearly free of the beasts. There were still regions that weren't so lucky—regions that probably wouldn't be genuinely safe until the Calamity was vanquished—but the journey was, in some ways, becoming simpler.

Simpler did not mean easier. She had to remain vigilant, no matter what. Whatever beasts could survive a fight with a Guardian would make every encounter that much worse, no matter how rare they were. The most powerful monsters tended to leave more obvious signs of their presence, but that was not _always_ the case. She thought of the lynel on Ploymus Mountain, how well it hunted.

She had already turned even before she heard Zelda's gasp, that sharp inhalation that said her charge was coming up out of the reverie of memory.

Every recovery of a memory since the one where Zelda recalled the deaths of the Champions had been followed by a discussion about it. Zelda and Paya would sit down together, and the drained princess would describe what she had experienced, what she remembered _within_ the memory, how it functioned as a snapshot not just of a time and of a place but also of the state of her mind. They would discuss relationships that had had new light shed on them, wonder aloud about the workings of the world and how much those workings had changed in the past century.

This was not going to be one of those times.

Zelda staggered as if struck, and Paya was beside her, taking one of the princess's arms over her shoulder, taking some of the weight as Zelda's legs nearly gave out. Zelda's free hand came up, gripping Paya's opposite shoulder.

Paya asked, "Are you all right?"

"No," Zelda said, her face so pale that it seemed for a moment that she was about to be seriously ill. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I have to sit down."

Paya lowered her gently, and Zelda sat on the ground, hanging her head between her knees. The princess was perspiring heavily and her breathing was ragged. She had never reacted to any of her memories in this way, but the short, clipped sentences followed by a kind of desperate silence suggested that she had nearly fainted.

Paya waited. The breeze was cool, and the air seemed very clean right then. She watched the rise and fall of Zelda's back.

"My apologies," Zelda said at last, raising her head and wiping at her forehead with the back of her glove. Telling Zelda not to apologize would not alleviate her embarrassment, so Paya remained quiet. The Princess leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting the breeze pass over her face and pull at her golden hair. "I'm all right now. It was a passing feeling."

"Brought on by the memory?"

Zelda nodded.

"Do you want to talk about it?" It wasn't so much a question as it was a formality; Zelda's recounting was always prefaced by Paya prompting her.

This time, though, the oracle shook her head. "No. Not this time, not right now. I do sincerely apologize, but... not this one. Not yet."

Paya stewed in that, trying to figure out if she might hurt Zelda in pushing this subject, deciding that she had to do it regardless. "Is there a particular reason why?" She could have phrased it more strongly than that: no other memory had ever made Zelda react this way. Paya had trouble imagining what could get this reaction, after everything that her companion had endured in their travels.

Zelda turned and considered her. The princess's eyes were enormous and green-blue and crystalline in the light and Paya's heart raced before she could get it under control.

The princess said, "There are no secrets between us."

Paya nodded. "No intentional ones."

Zelda's attention returned to the ground, and then she looked up at the tree where the memory had sat waiting for her. "It is difficult to think of, the degree to which this journey centers on relationships that I used to have. Urbosa, Mipha, Daruk, and assumedly Revali... I was different people for each of them. It's not that I tried to present a different aspect of myself to them, but that they drew those aspects from me. I answered their hearts in different ways."

"I think," Paya said, "that we all do that with different people, even the ones we're very close to. We are who our relationships make of us, and we may be different persons depending on who we are speaking to." She paused. "Is Link different, somehow?"

Zelda dug her fingers into the dirt, pulling out a small stone. She threw it at the tree, watched as it bounced off the bark and skipped a number of meters down the side of the hill before falling still in the tall grass.

Paya waited.

Finally, the amnesiac said, "I don't know. So much of my memory has been about finding out how I related to people, reconstructing the past so that my world of ghosts is something tangible, something real, something I want to protect. But most of these memories about Link feel... different. I know it's silly to say, but the woman who traveled with him seems so _young_ to me, even though I am not so far removed from her. I was changing so quickly during that pilgrimage, and it seemed like he was, too. We were trying to learn about each other, and help each—" She stopped, sighed. "He was trying to help me. I was trying to help myself."

"And this memory?"

"In this memory I was... blunt. I was trying to come to terms with the idea that what the world needed from me did not reflect the person that I was, or what I was capable of doing or even _being_. Link was, from my perspective, just the opposite: born from a line of knights, and now he was the Hero chosen by the sword. I asked him if, had he been born to these expectations and found himself unable to live up to them, he might have chosen another path."

Paya could imagine that: for some reason, she visualized this conversation taking place in the rain. She always visualized Zelda as being sad in the rain, for whatever reason.

She prompted, "What did he say?"

Zelda rubbed at her mouth with her hand, stared hard at the tree, and shook her head.

All right, she had to push a _little_ bit more. She could be forgiven for that. "You can't remember, or you don't want to say?"

She had thought Zelda would sink into silence, and so she flinched when the princess responded: "There is a wall inside of my thoughts, the bricks composed of my amnesia. I've never told you this before, but it's because I've never thought of it while talking. I suspect that it is a defense mechanism, protecting me from the enormity of what I've forgotten—and that makes me think that what I've forgotten is not just the perspective and memory of a depressed, overworked girl. That there may be more to it, something related to the goddess, and that for some reason Link is related to that." She sighed. "I both don't want to say and have only a very loose sense of what it was. I experienced it minutes ago, but the moment I awoke it was as if I'd forgotten it again."

This was a bit much for Paya to take in all at once; she was almost regretting having pushed as hard as she did. Still, she pushed again: "You think it might be related to the goddess Hylia?"

Zelda nodded. "There are no secrets between us."

"No," Paya agreed once more.

"The first memory I recovered was the one where I realized I loved him—Link. But since then, I have begun to think that I am not the first bearer of the power to have loved the Hero of their time. The vision that we shared in the Korok Village... there is an echo of it that remains. Hylia remembered someone—maybe more than one, but I think only one—with a desperate, almost feverish love. I felt that love, shared in it. But now it's hidden behind the wall, the truth reduced to an echo, and I am left with a mystery."

 _Echoes._ "Is there an echo of the answer Link gave you?"

Zelda nodded again.

"Was it like yours? The one you would have given, I mean?"

The princess got to her feet, offered Paya her hand. Paya took it, was pulled to her feet, was proud that her heart barely raced at all. _I am getting used to this. To her. To myself._

"No," Zelda said. "I don't remember enough to say what it was, but I do remember it was not like mine. This isn't something I appreciated at the time. I think I loved him because he was so different from me."

Paya mulled this over as Zelda drew out the Sheikah Slate and plotted a course for the northwest.

* * *

"And stop following me!"

She knew, even before she turned away and stormed off toward their horses, that he would not. It hadn't been a fair thing to ask of him—there was only one path down from this little plateau after all—but it was the truth of what she wanted and, for Hylia's sake, hadn't she held it in _enough_?

It was bad enough that she had borne the weight of his eyes for weeks, now, and nary a peep out of him to lend context or comfort or succor, just that same silent judgment from the perfect Hero who had been chosen by the Sword that Seals the Darkness—but to have him assigned to her by her lord father had ended up being worse than she'd ever dreamed. He followed her— _dogged_ her—with all the tenacity of a lost puppy who didn't know when it wasn't wanted. At least now, after having been well and truly chastised, he had the good grace to hang back far enough that she wasn't constantly walking in fear of his stepping on her heels.

Not that he ever had. Of course he hadn't; he could probably be directly behind her and still space his steps so perfectly that she would never know he was there. Of _course_ he could. What an idea, that he could fail in any given thing.

She didn't even want to ride her horse, which was looking more than a little self-satisfied in the finery it had been fitted with, so instead she took it by the reins and lead it down to the road. The gentle swaying of its body behind her pulled on her hand, which made her feel more relaxed than she would have been otherwise. This reflexive relaxation added to her irritation.

Then the sound of her horse's hooves were joined by a second set, and she realized she'd only had maybe four seconds where she could pretend she was by herself and in charge of the shape of the rest of her evening. She unclenched her jaw, mindful that she should not grind her teeth. She made a point not to look back as she descended, even when she stopped partway down the trail and looked out at nothing. _Let him wait for a minute, then._

The day was getting on when she reached the road; in fact, one could argue that it was ending, the sky fading over into shades of brilliant gold. She stood, and now she was watching mindfully; she could not see the sunset from her vantage point, but the play of light across the sky was truly, doubly gorgeous.

 _I am being unkind._

It was not an unjustified unkindness.

 _Is there such a thing as justified unkindness?_

Certainly. More, there was such a thing as people who were better equipped and prepared to compartmentalize and experience that unkindness, and the Hero, for all his silent judgment and taciturn thoughtfulness, was not exempt from that measure. Yes. He could take a little bit. So she ignored him mindfully, pushing him utterly from of her thoughts. She would pretend that his eyes were not on her back, that he was not judging her as she stared at the sky like a child. Let this moment of repose be a meditative moment, if it made everyone else feel better; she would even say, if pressed, that she was communing with nature. It wasn't that far from the truth, was it?

After a few minutes of watching the sky slowly darken to a brilliant shade of red-gold, she decided that she'd had enough, and that Link probably had, too. _Probably best to let him off the hook, now._

"Quite a lovely evening, isn't it?" She said in her most civil tone, turning back to him.

He wasn't there.

What _was_ there, a little ways up and just off the road, was the spot where he'd set up camp. Her tent was already erected, and Link's horse was tethered to a post that was part of their luggage. Link's bedroll was against the side of the tent, waiting to be rolled across the entrance once Zelda had retired for the night. Link himself was bent over the cook pot, from which rose a great cloud of steam and the smell of roasting herbs. She thought he glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, but of course she could not be absolutely sure.

"Of course," she said to herself. "Of course he would do all this while I was watching the sky. He should have been a jester, rather than a guard; I would be staggered if his skill with a sword could match his ability to make people feel foolish."

With a heavy tread she led her horse over to the fire, staring at her feet for most of the walk. She couldn't decide if she wasn't looking at him out of anger or out of embarrassment, but she would not let it be both. For some reason.

She stopped before the fire and raised her eyes again. Once more, he wasn't there.

"Where in the—"

Her reins slipped from her fingers, and she turned just in time to see the back of Link's head as he gently and expertly led _her_ horse over to the hitching post.

She hissed a sigh through her teeth, went to take her seat by the fire, and nearly sat in a plate of food. She caught herself in time, took the dish into her lap—and it was a very lavishly made fish pie, the crust shaped impishly like a fish and the whole thing redolent with excellently balanced herbs and spices set in a thick cream sauce—and began to eat. It was delicious, of course. He didn't really know how to make anything that wasn't.

She had eaten half of her pie before she realized she was alone. The horses were resting and grazing next to the post, nothing seemed to be _askew_ , exactly, but Link wasn't present. She took another bite as she craned her neck first one way and then another. Something inside of her wanted to panic, having a sudden sense of being alone as darkness fell, but panic was the reaction of a child. She would not be a child.

"All right," she said. "If he's gone, I'm left with only a few possibilities. He's either stepped away momentarily," in spite of the fact that he'd never stepped away long enough for her to notice before, somehow, "been accosted by some silent assassin, or he is obeying my command."

Lining those up, she felt sure in her reasoning. She took another bite of pie. She still didn't understand how he managed to make his crusts so flaky while basically steaming them. She chewed as she thought.

"Given how long it's been since I last saw him, I think I can discard the first possibility. The only cases where he's been out of sight for this long are always prefaced by his warning me beforehand. It's _possible_ that he is appropriately chastised in the wake of our conversation and thereby forgot to inform me, but he's never responded that way to me before, so it is so unlikely that it can be safely dismissed.

"The second possibility, that he has been physically overwhelmed, seems equally unlikely." Another bite, another thoughtful chew, and another swallow. "I don't think there's anything in all the land, maybe in the _world_ , that could lay him low in a contest of arms. If he fought something or someone, I would surely hear as he killed it or them. The only way this line of reasoning works is if he was subdued by an assassin who was capable of incapacitating him without making a sound. Assuming that such a threat existed, _and I am convinced it does not,_ " she said to the darkening night behind her, "there is no reason it would not have come for me first, or at least come for me while I sat here."

Sound reasoning. It did not stop her from looking over her shoulder, though. No one behind her. Which meant she was right, and not about to die. Two good things in one assurance. She turned back to the fire.

"So: I am left with the third possibility—he is obeying my command. Given that his horse is still hitched, he most likely has not set off for Hyrule Castle to inform my father that I do not require constant protection." She sighed. "And why would he? He has made his sense of duty in this regard exceedingly clear, many times. I don't know why I'm even bothering to work this out when I can solve the whole thing in one sentence." She raised her voice. "You can come out, Hero."

She didn't know where to expect him from, but wasn't _especially_ surprised when the Hero emerged from the dark behind her tent, carrying an empty tin and a fork. The light of the fire made him look almost spectral. His expression was perfectly neutral, perfectly controlled, as he crossed the distance and took his seat next to the fire.

Her eyes were fixed on the military-issue plate he'd recently emptied. "Did you eat your entire dinner in the dark behind the tent?"

His reply was clipped and quiet, barely louder than the fire: "I don't need to see to eat."

She wrinkled her nose. "Actually, I can imagine that presenting a challenge. Regardless, _why_ did you do such a thing?"

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, staring into the light. He wouldn't look at her; why wouldn't he look at her? Not embarrassment, surely, she didn't think he could even _feel_ embarrassment. Disgust, perhaps? "You wanted time alone."

Anger flared behind her eyes, white-hot and virulent so it pressed up against the corners of her vision. She didn't let it come through in her voice, save as a tremor that was surely too subtle to be heard. "I wanted respect. To be allowed to shape my own travels, for myself, and to take up the mantle and the responsibility of this pilgrimage on my own behalf. To spend my time on this journey _alone_ , in keeping with a meditative air, _not_ worrying about whether my so-called guardian had wandered off or been killed or decided to hide in the dark like a chastised child."

That, at last, made him raise his head.

He locked eyes with her and the weight of his regard was like a slap across her face. She felt herself flush, drowned in shame _twice_ in a single moment, and was forced to look away from him, from the judgment there. He'd heard her being small, and cruel, and petty, and of course he would judge her for it. Why shouldn't he? He was the Hero, he'd _already_ proven himself, to Hyrule and to the gods, and only his deeds could serve to elevate him further.

 _Why do I want so desperately to hurt him?_

Link put a stick in the fire and said, "I won't do it again."

That was it. No justification, no argument, not even an apology. A simple, clean statement of intent, which she knew instantly would be true. The Hero's word, he had proven more than once by now, was his bond.

"Thank you for dinner," she said. His hand was already out, taking her plate from her. She barely noticed.

She retired to her tent, as early as it was.

Lying awake for a long time, she thought over that exchange, the words said and unsaid, and the weight of his eyes. How she'd spent the entire day failing in front of him, relentlessly, thinking that she could affect him, shake him—a childish thought, born of childish reason and carried out with childish resolve.

Over her own tossing and turning, she did not hear how long he sat by the fire, feeding logs into it, nursing his own thoughts.

She must have fallen asleep, because she started awake to the sound of his bedroll being rolled out in front of her tent. She lay listening for ten minutes, unsure why it seemed so important. Curiosity gnawed at her. She could not have said why, but she wanted to see him—maybe even to check on him.

 _Not that,_ she assured herself.

Slowly, over the course of what must have been a quarter-hour so that she could be sure she was making absolutely no noise, she exited her bedroll and crawled across the interior of the tent. With agonizing slowness she reached forward with one finger, hooking the tip around the flap of the tent. She pulled it aside to the smallest degree possible, leaving only the barest sliver of space through which she could observe the night.

She looked, for a long time, at Link. He never noticed her. And for all that time, until she let the flap fall closed and retreated to her bedroll, the Hero lay awake, staring at the sky.

* * *

The shadow of Vah Medoh passed over Zelda and Paya in another long, terrible sweep. They looked up together, as they'd done each time, squinting against the glare as the silhouette of the Divine Beast blocked the light of the sun, however briefly.

Their trip into the Tabantha region was mostly uneventful—from their perspective. Flying Guardians were set in their path, and would have posed a challenge to any traveler that was not Zelda. The amnesiac princess saw them before they spotted her, and reached out to them with the power, restoring them to the state that had been theirs before the Calamity's harsh kiss. The change in them was instant, and as a group they swung about, heading further along the path at a pace far more rapid than Zelda and Paya could have kept up with. Perhaps an hour later, concussive eruptions sounded from far ahead. Whatever monsters the Guardians had been seeking out, they'd found it.

Activating the Tabantha Tower had been quite a climb, and the two of them rested at its peak, taking their lunch while the afternoon wore on. Following instructions given to them in passing, they sought out a third fairy fountain and found it. Kaysa greeted them warmly, just as her sisters had, and with her magic increased the protection of their armor.

You do not need to hear how they reacted to the third level of a great fairy's blessing, surely. Paya was only fully conscious for the first contact, regardless; everything after that was experienced through a haze that nearly qualified as stupor.

The Tabantha region was cool, and quiet, and ideal for conversation. So talk they did, in the way of people who had traveled long and been through much together. There was no need to fill awkward silences, now, and conversations could be picked up and continued after an hour's rest or even more. There was distance between them—of course there was—but that did not preclude the simple intimacy of enjoying one another's company.

"I think," Zelda said at one point, "that I do not strictly _need_ to visit shrines, any longer."

Rito Village was rising before them, a spire of stone around which one could see flitting shapes—the Rito themselves, though above them lurked an avian terror. They would reach the village in a matter of hours.

"Have you collected an adequate amount of strength?" Paya's question said that she knew the answer would be in the negative, which was usually how she asked for more details. It was still an odd habit, to Zelda, but was probably ingrained in her when speaking to social superiors.

That thought was sour in her mind, but she was much better at hiding her thoughts than she'd been a century ago. She answered, with not a single misplaced inflection, "No. I think that, in order to prepare myself as well as possible, I should collect _every_ spirit orb from every monk, if I can. However, collecting those spirit orbs does not, I think, necessitate visiting each of the shrines physically. Do you remember how I described teleporting to the shrine above the Yiga Hideout?"

Paya nodded, which Zelda couldn't _see_ because the Sheikah was walking behind her, but she knew Paya was nodding anyway.

"Discovering that distance _is_ genuinely arbitrary in the way that Impa suggested, and that I can use Hylia's power as a conduit for information or energy in other forms, radically changes the way I can interact with the world. It would probably be best to free Revali and marshal at least one more memory, first, but if I'm right then I could be standing anywhere in Hyrule and activate the shrines—or even reach through them and commune with the monks directly! In fact, I may not be limited to—"

A song floated through the air as they walked, and Zelda stopped to listen for a moment. Paya stepped in beside her, inclined her head to listen more intently, too.

"What beautiful music," Zelda said. "And nostalgic, somehow. Is that an accordion?"

"It is. And whoever is playing it is playing it very well."

They stood together a minute longer, letting the music wash over them.

"Well. I think that is enough waiting. Shall we proceed?"

"Certainly."

The two walked together, crossing the last stretch toward the home of the Rito, as if the music was calling to them.


	43. Rito Village

The first thing that Zelda noticed about the individual playing the accordion was his plumage. It was hard to miss: though many of the Rito had striking feathers, the musician's vivid mixture of bright blues and earthy yellows, whites, and browns were almost singular in how the colors flowed into and complemented one another. His dark beak took up more of his face, too, which should have made him less expressive—but as Zelda and Paya drew near he smiled with his eyes and with it showed more than a mouth could have.

So, that was the first contact that the pair had with Rito Village: meeting a beautiful musician on the road.

As they drew near he relaxed, and the last notes of the music echoed to silence as he lowered his accordion.

"Hello, travelers," he said, seeming to take in both of them at a single glance. "Please excuse me for not greeting you earlier; I have a tendency to become lost in my playing. My name is Kass."

"My name is Zelda, and my companion is Paya." Paya inclined her head to Kass, who nodded in return. "You play beautifully."

Kass seemed to light up, and also to puff up very slightly as his feathers stood more on end. "How very kind of you! In truth, music is my trade. I would be a wandering musician, but there are obligations that keep me near to Rito Village. Are the two of you on your way to visit, Zelda and Paya?"

There was something in the way he used their names, a kind of familiarity and expectation, which gave the entire game away. He was still smiling with his eyes, an amused look that told Zelda exactly how far along in the conversation they had already gone. _Of all the places I've been and all the people I've met, I think he has solved the riddle the fastest._

"You know who we are," she said.

Now his smile fell away, and he turned his head slightly to look at them more squarely with his left eye. "Ah. Well. There's been word spreading about the two of you, you know." Very slowly, his motions so subtle as to be almost imperceptible, he began to play again, low and quiet as if adding background to their conversation. "A Hylian woman with gold hair and a Sheikah woman with silver, carrying a Sheikah Slate and ancient armor... and possessing the weapons of the long-lost Champions."

The Lightscale Trident and Boulder Breaker were strapped to Zelda's back, and she became suddenly aware of the weight of them. Paya was also wearing the Scimitar of the Seven and Daybreaker, their make so fine that she had temporarily put away her own Sheikah weaponry. Up to this point, it had never occurred to her that anyone would recognize the weapons of the Champions, save for the peoples who had acted as those weapons' caretakers.

That told her something about Kass. "You're a scholar," she said. "A historian, I would guess."

He didn't laugh, exactly, but his chest did vibrate while he looked away. "That is probably too generous. Think of me as more of a troubadour, collecting stories and setting them to music in the fashion of my teacher. Even calling me a bard would be going too far, I think, but I wouldn't argue with you if you insisted." The music picked up, very slightly.

Zelda felt it as Paya prepared to speak, turned, was surprised by the look of concentration on the other woman's face.

Paya said, "I recognize this music. It's not a composition I've heard before, but it's in the style that the Sheikah use to set poetry to song. Are you Sheikah-trained?"

Kass lit up again, and his playing suddenly expanded, becoming energetic and happy and upbeat, the sort that made one want to sway to it. "I am, yes! It makes me very happy to hear that you recognize the mode, my friend. My master was formerly the bard working in the court of the Royal Family of Hyrule, and he passed down a great deal to me. His compositions, his methods, his motifs... and his sorrows." Now he looked at Zelda, and something in the set of his eyes was apologetic. "I should confess: I knew who you were at first glance. I think I would have known you even before the rumors began to circulate. When you fell at the battle on the Blatchery Plain, my master was one of the men who carried you to safety. He... never forgot your face, and never failed to describe you in detail when talking about you."

There was more there, a great deal more, but Zelda understood without it being said that there was history there that she did not need to partake in, history that would only serve to slow her down with connections that she no longer felt.

"You mentioned that word had been spreading about us?"

"Certainly! Granted, not _everywhere_. My sister-in-law happened to be vacationing in Gerudo Town when the Calamity attacked and when you tamed Vah Naboris." He smiled again. "Well. When Chief Riju tamed Vah Naboris, I suppose—but I'm guessing that Gerudo and Hylian historical records will differ on this subject."

"I don't think they will, actually."

Kass nodded appreciatively. "As you say, so shall it surely be. Regardless, my sister-in-law stuck around just long enough for rumors to spread about your true identity, and then after that she came home with all speed. She knew I would want to hear the news, I suppose—which is just as well, as my daughters were all worried to distraction on her account." He shook his head, and the music stopped again. "Pardon me. I have a tendency to run on. Having you here is a delight, but I think it is also a momentous occasion for our people."

A deep roar echoed across the valley, a mechanical sound that rattled the teeth in Zelda's head, made Paya flinch, and stilled Kass's playing. All three, without prompting and with one will, turned their gazes skyward.

Vah Medoh turned above them, blotting out the sun and defying the sky, the massive propellers on its wings making a thunderous sound even from this distance. It turned almost lazily, and the sky was so clear and so cloudless that looking up at it, one could lose all sense of scale—perhaps it was only a bird, and hung lazily in the air just above their heads. But then it passed behind the massive spire of Rito Village, far on its other side, and its colossal size was once more asserted.

 _You are the last_ , Zelda thought. _Just one more step, and we will be ready._

Kass said, "I have heard that the other three Divine Beasts all attempted to destroy the ancestral homes of the Champions who once piloted them." He looked at Zelda with one eye. "And that each time, the margin for protecting the people who lived there was very narrow." _Each time, you barely averted catastrophe_ , he could have said.

Zelda nodded, more to acknowledge him than anything else, and stared up at Vah Medoh. Kass was right, of course, that was a perfectly cogent description of events. She could relive, with perfect clarity, the moment that she used the Cryonis rune to push Vah Ruta's aim out of alignment, or when she called on Mipha to attack Vah Rudania, or when she threw herself bodily before the path of Vah Naboris's weapon. Thinking on them now recalled the experiences down to the smallest details. The power involved. How many deaths, in each case, were only barely averted.

She said, "I do not imagine that this will be the same."

Kass hesitated. Then: "It would do my heart good to hear why you are so assured, friend."

She pointed at the colossus. "Simply because of how the Divine Beast moves." That didn't explain enough, judging by the expressions that Paya and Kass now wore. "Every time a Divine Beast fires its weapon, it has to be anchored. The recoil generated would throw them backward, otherwise. If Vah Medoh tried to fire its weapon from the air then it would be sent spiraling, unable to guarantee the destruction of its target. Before it fires, it has to alight on a sturdy platform." She scowled, now, only realizing this at the same time she said it: "Every possible perch in this area is within sight of all three of the other Divine Beasts. If it looks as if it is going to attack, and I am not sure I will be able to protect the Rito, then I will command the others to destroy Vah Medoh."

Now they were staring at her. Fine. Let them stare. She was sure of this course of action. She would have done it with Naboris, if it hadn't been hidden behind steep desert cliffs.

"Zelda," Paya said, "would you willingly destroy one of our most powerful weapons against Ganon?"

"Without hesitation, if lives were at stake."

She did not try to assure Paya, because there could be no assurances. She would give up some of her power to protect the people of this land, and whatever disadvantage that created against the Calamity... they would simply have to deal with it as it arose. Her conscience would let her choose nothing else.

The tension in the air had grown thick, and then Kass said, "Would you like a guide as you travel around Rito Village? I would be happy to accompany you."

The wind blew cool across their faces. Paya took the initiative to speak: "It wouldn't be an inconvenience?"

"Not at all! Not at all. Why, you could say I've been waiting for you to arrive. Come, I'll give you the tour."

* * *

"Believe it or not, this pond is actually very nutrient-rich and can support a small colony of hearty salmon. My daughters love to come here to fish, which is easy for me since I don't have to worry about them falling into the lake. Up ahead," and on Kass went, giving amiable and informative anecdotes about the places they passed, tied in with his personal relation to every spot. You could feel his attachment to his home, and to its history.

A spire of stone rose out of a lake and on it life flourished. Homes and businesses and pathways were carved out of the rock and built up with carefully cured wood, to protect against the cold and the wind of the Tabantha winters. To ascend those steps was to ascend the steps of antiquity—not so old as the Rito themselves, but as old as their settlement in this region, stretching back into a time before recorded history. There was a kind of subdued happiness that Zelda felt in the air as they ascended Rito Village, the spiral taking them past shops and guards and people who eyed the tourists with a warm sense of curiosity; the happiness, she thought, might have been born of the sheer fact of flight, or even in its potential. She only had access to the paraglider, not wings, but looking out at the land below made her want to take an enormous leap and to soar across the waters and the land beyond, reaching some distant point on the horizon, unburdened by the ground.

The subdued element to the happiness, of course, was from Vah Medoh. Kass mentioned it as they were walking, but if he hadn't then Zelda would have been able to surmise that the weapon systems of the Divine Beast represented a danger to anyone who wanted to fly too high.

 _That is a thought, isn't it? To be so gifted in how you move through the world, and then to have a guardian become a predator that limits you so fundamentally._

It was the same story with all the Divine Beasts, of course. Ruta, Rudania, and Naboris had all been guardians that had betrayed the people over whom they were supposed to preside. Something about the Rito made it feel worse, though, as much as they were not showing it in their faces or their behavior as Kass exchanged cheery greetings with shopkeepers and youths.

 _They should be able to fly. Why do I care so much about this, in particular, even if it's true? Is this some element of my past, pushing through to the surface of my thoughts?_

They passed by a shrine and Zelda marked it in her head: she would need to return here, once their business was concluded. Or perhaps she wouldn't, physically speaking. She needed to attempt her experiment sooner rather than later.

Kass came to a stop outside of a house near the shrine. "My apologies, friends. This is my home, and I would like to take a moment to check in with my wife. Will you indulge me for a few mmoments? You can come in, if you like."

Zelda nearly responded in the positive before cutting her eyes to Paya, who didn't shake her head so much as she clenched her hands. Not right now, then: the tension of walking around with one new person, especially one as gregarious as Kass, was about as much as Paya could handle.

"Thank you for the offer," Zelda said, "but we don't want to impose on you. We'll happily wait until you've finished."

There was a moment where it seemed that Kass would reply, or perhaps attempt to invite them in again, but his eyes darted between both of them and then he smiled in that particular way that the Rito did. "Of course. Thank you for your patience. I will return momentarily." He went inside.

Zelda and Paya stood in the relative quiet for a moment, listening to the soft murmur of Kass and his spouse talking inside of their home, and then they both wandered slowly over to the shrine that stood nearby. Neither pushed for them to move, exactly—it was just agreed, without speaking, that they should do so. Paya walked behind Zelda as the oracle stepped onto the dais, using the Sheikah Slate to activate the travel rune.

"Are you holding up all right?" Zelda asked.

"Me? Oh, with Kass! Yes, I'm doing fine, thank you." Paya hesitated. "Am I doing all right? I don't want to be rude unintentionally."

That made Zelda turn and look at Paya, really trying to take her in. Zelda hadn't opened up her senses with the power since the battle with Vah Naboris, and was trying to avoid doing so for as long as possible; for whatever reason, she felt more sure in her own body and in the people around her if she was using her physical senses. _That is probably vanity._ Well, in any case she wouldn't want to engage with Paya's thoughts without explicit permission, so using her physical senses alone was what she did. And, yes, Paya _was_ acting shy, even anxious, though it was very far removed from the degree and means that Zelda had been prepared for by prior interactions.

"I do not think you are being rude, no. I can't speak for Kass, of course, I don't understand very much about Rito customs, but he seems happy to talk to us." A thought occurred to her. "Does he make you nervous?"

"Kass?" Paya shook her head. "No. No, he's very nice. He's just," here she stopped, reached for a concept. "He is very much like Prince Sidon, isn't he? But he is like gently flowing water, where Prince Sidon is an inferno."

"Hm." That _was_ a fair comparison. "They are both rather personable, I suppose. Still, if his familiarity starts to bother you, let me know and I will—tactfully!—make sure that it stops."

She had expected Paya to refuse, was surprised when the other woman nodded her head and mumbled thanks.

Kass emerged a couple of minutes later, no longer carrying his accordion, and his mien was perceptibly darker.

Zelda asked, "Is something the matter?"

Kass's tone did not fall far from his cool cheeriness, but the difference was sharp enough to notice, still. "Amali tells me that two of our friends, Harth and Teba, tried to approach Vah Medoh." He shook his head. "I am glad that you've arrived now, friends. I fear that tensions will drive the brave and the foolish to act on those impulses, eventually and inevitably to their detriment."

 _Someone approached the Divine Beast?_ "Are they all right?"

"Ah, yes, all things considered. Harth—he's the village's foremost bowyer—was wounded, but he will recover soon enough, I hope. Teba is the best flyer the village has had since Revali disappeared, and he managed to escape unscathed. Amali tells me that his wife fears he means to attack the Divine Beast again, this time by himself." Kass sighed, clicking his beak thrice in a kind of avian _tut-tut_. "I should have words with him."

Zelda and Paya had nothing they could say to that, the swirl of names and relationships forming a miasma around them. The three continued ascending the winding path up, towards where Kass said Kaneli, the village elder, made his abode. Zelda was too absorbed with the idea of people actually seeking out the Divine Beast, trying to _fight it_ , to pay much attention to her surroundings or Kass's running narrative.

 _Everywhere we have gone, people have mostly feared the Divine Beasts. Though there have always been those willing to fight them, it's never been something undertaken without thorough preparation. This Teba must be either very brave or very foolish._

 _Probably both_.

Something moved across Zelda's consciousness, like the wind whispering a word to her, and she looked up. A broad wooden platform jutted out from the rest of the village, and something about it was intensely familiar to her.

"What is this place?" she asked, and her question brought Kass and Paya to a stop.

"This?" Kass's eyes were warm as he regarded the plain but well-maintained space. "This is Revali's Landing. When he was training with the Divine Beast, he would always alight from this spot. It is difficult to oversell the importance of this place to him, though I suppose that might be hard to communicate to anyone who isn't a Rito. Similarly, Revali was important to _us_ , reclaiming our power of true flight for the first time in generations."

Kass kept talking, smoothly and lyrically, comfortable in his rhythm and in his story.

The feeling of nostalgia built up inside of Zelda, crawling up the interior of her consciousness as she stepped out onto the landing for herself. The wind was blowing here, fierce and insistent, calling her to the sky, and in that call she felt an echo of someone else.

 _He was here. He stood here. Revali._

She focused. Kass said something behind her, and Paya, blessed Paya, asked him to wait. Zelda focused: on the feeling of Revali, on the nearness of his past self, on the person that he had once been, on who he had been to her.

For the first time she smashed against the wall of her amnesia and insistently tore at it.

 _Revali was here. I have to remember Revali._

The wall of memory shook. She tore away a stone.

Light poured from her eyes, blotting out the world.

Zelda remembered.

* * *

Zelda was not _surprised_ , exactly, that her father had charged the Divine Champions to participate in an exhibition of their martial prowess. Galled, yes, but by no means surprised.

It made sense in its own way: the Champions, including the Hero, were all public figures to greater or lesser degrees, and all of them would be performing tremendous acts of martial ability on behalf of the populace of every region and every kingdom in Hyrule. Why wouldn't they show off their skills against one another in a simple contest? It would prove their relative prowess, and act as a showcase for the citizenry. Mostly, she knew, the latter.

The coliseum was a day's ride to the southwest of Castle Town, and Zelda had expected that only a scattering of people would attend. It was only two days before the ceremony where the Champions and the Hero would be formally named, and there were preparations to be made for what was promising to be an enormous celebration. In that respect, then, Zelda allowed herself to be surprised: far more people came to watch the Champions fight than she would have ever guessed.

She did not know how many individuals the coliseum could hold, but surely it was filled to capacity, now, with the quiet thunder of thousands of voices drowning out any single conversation. Most of the crowd was Hylian, but all the peoples of Hyrule were there gathered, including the Zora. There were actually a good deal more Rito than there seemed to be at first glance, with many of them alighting on the very rim of the stadium, their sharp eyes giving them a clear view and their ability to fly giving them access that would have been denied to any of the terrestrial or aquatic peoples.

It was easy, in that crush of humanity and the building energy of the spectators, to lose track of why one was actually here—but that was only true until one's eyes wandered to the arena itself, and to the Champions who now paced there. All of them but one.

"I still do not understand," Zelda said, "why you have elected not to participate."

Revali scoffed. "I think I've been _very_ clear on the subject, myself."

The viewing box in which Zelda was seated housed five people: herself, her father, two guards, and Revali. It was possible that Revali had not been invited to the viewing box—certainly he had arrived in a flurry of motion and sound from the air, exciting whoops and shrieks from the Rito in the audience, rather than quietly entering through the hallway connected to the rear of the platform—but Zelda wasn't sure on that. Her father seemed to be avoiding looking at the Rito Champion, for whatever reason, which suited her well; she hadn't spoken to Revali since asking him to sign on to fight the Calamity. Not that the man was making it any easier.

Still. She spoke calmly, even sweetly, so as not to betray her irritation. "As you say, Revali. Still, I would appreciate an explanation that is tailored to my limited perspective."

Revali raised a brow at her, giving the same impression that a Hylian would by tilting their mouth. "You're going to keep that act up, are you?"

She said nothing, kept her face perfectly neutral as she regarded him.

"All right. Look down at the arena. Tell me what you see."

She looked. Four of the five Champions were gathered—well, loosely speaking they were gathered. Urbosa, Mipha, and Daruk stood near the center of the arena, conferring with each other, while Link paced back and forth at the southern end of the clearing. He was eying the others with a rare intensity, which they didn't seem to mind—except for Mipha, who would occasionally check where he was standing, meet his gaze, and get so flustered that she could only look at the ground. _Poor Mipha,_ Zelda thought. _I would be just as nervous if I was preparing to fight the so-called strongest warrior in the kingdom._

"I see the two teams preparing for the contest to come, such as it will be."

"'Such as it will be?' Tell me, your highness, how do you imagine this contest going?"

The roar of the crowd died down as the king rose and lifted his arms. He began a speech he had been preparing for days, extolling the virtues of the gathered Champions-to-be both as warriors and as representatives of Hyrule. He'd had to edit it only very little after Revali had decided to abstain from the battle, apparently. Zelda and Revali both ignored him.

"I cannot pretend to know how martially capable Mipha is," Zelda said, "but I've seen Daruk fight and witnessed Urbosa foil an assassination. Daruk is, for all intents and purposes, unstoppable—I've seen him crush nearly a dozen bokoblins in as many seconds, and he wasn't even winded in the attempt."

"And Urbosa?"

Something in Revali's tone was teasing, and for one second Zelda thought be might be mocking the Gerudo Chief, or else Zelda's faith in her, and her temper flared. She got it under control before she spoke: "I genuinely believe that there is no one who is as skilled or as dangerous as Urbosa is, even _before_ her mastery of lightning."

"I see! And I suppose that you would have as much perspective on the Great Urbosa as anyone. Now, tell me, your highness, how are our contestants _armed_?"

Of course Revali would have noticed such a thing: he was a warrior, while she wasn't. She'd been paying attention solely to the way that the Champions were standing in relation to each other, to the group's spacing from Link. Now she focused, really focused, on what each fighter was holding. "All of them seem to be holding training weapons made of blunted wood. Mipha has a spear, Urbosa a short sword and round shield, and Daruk has what appears to be a freshly cut log."

"Mm-hmmm?"

"And the Hero..." Now she stopped, looking at the pacing youth. "Has he not drawn his weapon?"

"They don't make scabbards for training swords, I don't think. He's holding everything he'll use."

She squinted, trying to see across the distance. "He has a metal shield and... nothing. His right hand is red. He's unarmed?"

"The red is paint," Revali said. "You've never seen him fight, have you? They gave him that paint because if he was using a sword—even a wooden one—he would either hurt the others or shatter the weapon in his hands. So instead he's supposed to get inside their guard and paint their vitals."

Zelda frowned. "You mean to say that the Hero is _so_ skilled that he must go unarmed while the greatest warriors from every region of Hyrule carry weapons? The idea is farcical."

Revali said, in a tone so earnest it took Zelda aback: "I happen to agree." He shook his head. "The king's speech is winding down. Listen, I'm not _meaning to say_ anything except for this: your little hero against Mipha, Daruk, and Urbosa? That's a fair fight."

Revali's tendency towards self-aggrandizing was, by now, rote, but this went so far that she found herself scowling at him. He did not care for decorum, so she could let hers slip, however slightly. "Do you mean to say that your involvement would tip the scales, when nobody else's would?"

"No. I'll explain in a moment. Watch, they're about to begin. Watch, or you'll miss it!"

She whipped her attention back to the arena.

Her father lowered his arms.

Trumpets blared as Daruk and Urbosa edged forward, weapons in hand. Mipha hung back, though she was no less prepared, sinking low in some sort of martial stance that kept her spear's head near to the ground.

"Mipha is the healer," Revali said. "He'll go for her first!"

A small Sheikah explosive was detonated in the air, the heavy _crack_ acting as the signal. Things happened all at once.

Zelda caught only glimpses.

Link was not a person, he was a blur, rocketing across the arena like a flash of lightning. Urbosa swung for him with her shield, and he ducked under her, avoiding Daruk entirely.

Mipha's spear was alive in her hands, tracing eye-searing patterns in the air in front of her, but there was a resounding, constant thunder of wood on steel as Link intercepted every thrust and strike. There was a louder sound, and Mipha's spear went spinning into the air—then Link was in front of her, his right arm a blur. Less than a heartbeat later he was gone again.

Zelda's eyes stayed on Mipha for that moment. It was hard to see against the color of her skin, but a brighter red had been painted across her throat, the join of her arms, and her stomach. As Zelda watched, the Zora princess touched the place where Link had marked her throat, then brought her fingers up to her lips. _She's in shock,_ Zelda thought.

Mipha's spear hit the ground.

Urbosa was a whirlwind, a flurry of motion who might as well have been performing a carefully choreographed dance with the blue thunderbolt in front of her. Zelda could not follow all of the Chief's movements, but she _could_ see that Urbosa was using the same style as when she fought the Yiga assassins outside of Gerudo Town, parrying and whirling and cutting—but Link stayed out of range, moving in false starts and feints that made Urbosa swing at nothing, hitting only the air with her sword and shield.

Then Daruk was there, swinging, and Link ducked under the enormous wooden blade and came up with his right hand—which was stopped short by Daruk's Protection.

There was a crackle on Link's shield, a gathering of light that was almost imperceptible to the audience but that drew Zelda's eye, because she knew the mark of Urbosa's fury.

Urbosa held up her hand.

In the same instant that Urbosa snapped her fingers, Link hurled his shield directly at the Chief.

Lightning struck the shield and Urbosa.

The Chief of the Gerudo wasn't harmed by the lightning, Zelda knew she couldn't be, but Urbosa had to bring up her own shield to stop the projectile from hitting her in the face—and then Link was in front of her, his hand flashing in and out before he was gone again.

Urbosa looked down at the red line across her abdomen, scowled, and shook her head. She looked up, seeking Zelda, and when their eyes met Urbosa could only shrug.

Link slammed into Daruk's Protection, the Big Brother of the Gorons grinning impishly behind his impenetrable barrier. Link could hit hard, but he couldn't break Daruk's Protection with his speed or with his bare hands.

As if answering Daruk's grin, Link knelt in front of the Goron Champion.

The entire coliseum had been almost completely silent during this exchange—things were happening too quickly to believe, much less to react to. Something in that silence shifted, though, becoming much more pronounced, as Link worked his arms underneath Daruk's Protection. Everyone in the audience could hear the exhalation as he hoisted Daruk, barrier and all—and then with a shout of effort, lifted the shining red orb of protective magic over his head.

Zelda's mouth hung open. She didn't care that she was showing her shock. She glanced at her father, whose color had drained from his face, and then at Revali, who was _infuriatingly_ unsurprised with how this seemed to be going.

Link took one step, holding Daruk over his head. Then another. And another. He was headed in the direction of the arena's gate.

An image occurred to Zelda, then, and she understood that it occurred to everyone else present simultaneously: Link carrying Daruk, whose Protection made him immune to the force of Link's hands—but not to the force of gravity, which would be his greatest enemy when Link threw him into a ravine.

It must have occurred to Daruk, too.

" _I yield!_ " The Protection disappeared, and Daruk dropped heavily onto Link's hands. The Hero, for his part, was still holding the Goron aloft. "I yield, you win, you win!"

Silence.

Then the entire stadium exploded in a riot of noise and sound and shouting and whistling, an eruption of a volume that made Zelda cover her ears. She'd never heard anything this loud in her _life_ , and also she didn't care in the least. She was still staring when Link set Daruk onto the ground, when Mipha and Urbosa joined the two of them and seemed to laugh at something Daruk said. Link, for his part, stood passively.

"Well?" Revali said. Somehow, his voice cut through the din, drawing her attention insistently and instantly. "Do you understand now?"

That was a genuine question; it was also a challenge. Well, she could answer a challenge, couldn't she? And why not?

"The only thing I understand," she said, "is that the Hero seems to be everything that the stories about him would suggest." That frustrated her. It had frustrated her from the moment he had returned from the Lost Woods carrying the Master Sword. "I saw how skilled you are with a bow, Revali—I'd argue that you're peerless with it, in the air." He must have agreed, because he looked very perceptibly more smug. "Given that performance, do you think that your involvement would have swayed the match in favor of the other Champions?"

"I don't know," he said, which she was not expecting, "but I can tell you this: it would have ended in serious injuries for at least one person involved."

After what she had just watched, she had trouble imagining it. "What makes you say that?"

"There's something you don't realize about fighters, your highness—not that I can blame you, since you aren't familiar with the art yourself. But don't worry, I am here for nothing if not to lend my expertise." Oh, she hated that, but she had to listen. "Simply put, there is a threshold of performance past which we would not be able to hold back against each other. Say that I did go out there, with a decent bow and a quiver full of padded arrows, and used my absolutely dominating command of the air to pelt the would-be hero from every direction while he tried to deal with, say, Mipha. He would have no way to counter this, except to fight with the intent to disable me, perhaps with a spear or with a bow of his own. And if Link is armed, then suddenly _everyone_ must fight with the intent to harm just to keep up with him. Tell me, how much stronger is Daruk when he's swinging around that big slab of sheet rock he calls a weapon? Was Urbosa fighting as hard as she could, just now?"

Once, when she was very small—only barely old enough to recall, so small that her mother had been with her—a terrible sandstorm had descended on Gerudo Town, all wind and lightning and destruction. Zelda could not clearly remember that day, but she did remember the image of Urbosa wearing a golden helm, standing against the storm, leashing lightning in her hands, calling nature to heel. She and her mother had watched as Urbosa's fury had calmed the desert and cleared the skies.

"No," Zelda said, with perfect confidence. "No, she was not fighting at her hardest. At her most powerful—with the Thunder Helm—Urbosa might well be able to level this stadium."

"Uh, sure. That's kind of a weird, extreme example, but you see what I mean. What you just saw was actually a fairly close match, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, but once I'm added to the mix the balance is thrown off, and before you know it everything is much more intense, much more violent, and much more dangerous. So it was only reasonable for me to stand back, and to allow the fight to play out as it had to."

The roar of the crowd had not died away, in spite of the king's attempts to quiet the spectators, and Zelda could not help watching the four warriors in the center of the arena. They seemed so close when they stood like that, laughing and joking, and something about their closeness made her feel much farther away from them than the physical distance could suggest on its own.

 _How intimate they seem. Could I be like them, too, if I could master myself as they have themselves? As the Hero has himself?_

 _What a notion._

"It seems to me," she said to Revali, "that it was mostly reasonable to preserve your dignity."

She had expected him to puff up, or to scoff, or to fume, or any number of things: she did not expect him to laugh as if she'd made a joke, his whole body shaking with mirth as he held his sides. His laughter was so perfectly calculated and measured in its arrogance that she couldn't even feel bad for her own meanness.

"Your highness," he said, "if you think that my passing on this little scene is due to a lack of _confidence_ , I suppose I have no choice but to correct you. I had been hoping to prevent any injuries to the other champions or to your little soldier, but if Mipha's here then I suppose all of that can be patched up, can't it?"

 _Wait I didn't mean for him to go this far._ "Revali, I didn't mean—"

" _However!_ I cannot promise that the boy with the sword won't suffer wounds to his ego, and I don't think healing magic will be able to help with _that_."

 _I have started something very dangerous._

The king was still trying to get the crowd's attention, to calm the feverish jubilation that met the clash of the Champions, and the stress was telling on his face.

That was when Revali leaped onto the railing at the edge of the balcony, puffed out his chest, and let loose a cry that was commensurate with his size, a screech that silenced the crowd all at once as many spectators—especially the Rito—instinctively looked to the sky.

Silence followed, during which Zelda and her father both stared at Revali, who was looking very pleased with himself. Then he spoke, and he projected across the entire arena:

"Gathered peoples of Hyrule! What you have just seen is a spectacular rarity: the full and unrestrained prowess of the greatest warriors who walk the fields or swim in the waters! Though the exchange was brief, that briefness is only thanks to the spectacular skill of all of those involved: win or lose, the battle to which we paid witness could last only for moments. This is the nature of battle—it flares for only a moment and then vanishes, like... a thunderbolt."

Urbosa visibly rolled her eyes. The crowd whooped. Zelda could not imagine why, but they seemed to like Revali.

"Still! To be given such meager fare when so many of us have traveled so far... should there not be one more fight?"

Maybe it wasn't Revali that made the crowd respond with a roar, a roar of enthusiasm so unimpeded that the king looked out upon his subjects with barely suppressed alarm. Zelda decided, in that moment, that they liked the _action_ , the thrill of combat without the risk of injury or death. They liked the idea of the strongest representatives of their own people being able to show off their strength. _But how weighted that anticipation must be, when one of those representatives is the Hero of legend. How could anyone compare to_ —

"Now, it needs to be said," Revali continued, "that those participants in this battle of Champions are superb fighters—but I did not misspeak when I said that they are the best warriors to walk the land." Now his words were a challenge: "But after all, what is all of that compared to one who treads through the _heavens?_ "

The crowd erupted again as Revali leaped from the balcony, twirling gracefully through the air before landing in the arena with a flourish. The voices of the Rito spectators, in particular, rang out above the others.

Zelda could not actually hear Urbosa, but knew her well enough to guess at what the Chief of the Gerudo was saying as she walked away, waving her hand dismissively.

Revali threw some retort at Urbosa's back, but the words were lost in the din.

Daruk laughed, shaking his head, and followed Urbosa. Mipha, who was still absent-mindedly touching her throat (and Zelda wondered if the paint was irritating the Zora Princess's skin), looked to the Hero for long moments before following Daruk.

Revali made a sweeping bow, holding out his right wing to Link in a gesture that was almost mocking in its challenge.

"Well then, the proclaimed Hero of Hyrule," Revali said, projecting enough so that the crowd could hear him, and they responded with silence to better catch his words, "will you answer my call for a single challenge? Would you rather let the Zora Princess tend to your _aches_ and your _weariness_ first? Or will you fight me with everything you have?"

Link did not answer; he looked up to the viewing box. To the king. He was the foremost member of the royal guard, after all, and answered to the king alone.

Rhoam Bosphoramous Hyrule's face was grave as he nodded.

The crowd erupted again, and the noise did not die away as the combatants were prepared. Link and Revali both took training swords, sturdy bows, and arrows with padded tips—enough to hurt or even break a bone, but nothing that could not be patched up by Mipha in the case of an emergency. Link kept his shield, but when Revali was offered one he turned his face away as if disgusted by the idea, an affectation that endeared him even more to the onlookers.

"I do not think that I will share in Urbosa's need," he announced, and the crowd roared.

 _How quickly things are moving,_ Zelda thought. _Who do I want to win in this exchange?_

Certainly Revali was invested with— _infested_ with, even—the sort of arrogance that made her instantly and insistently hope that he would be made more humble by being shown his own limits. But the crowd loved him, the Rito seemed to adore him, and there was something about the depths of his confidence when facing down the man who was named worthy by the Master Sword that spoke to her just as it spoke to any of the other spectators.

 _Besides, there is more than one kind of arrogance. Revali is open with his confidence, makes himself vulnerable in its expression, and with his mouth makes promises that his body must work to fulfill. Is that somehow worse than the arrogance of a man who does not deign to even show interest in the people around him—whose confidence is so absolute that he never bothers to even voice it?_

The Hero checked the straps on his gauntlets. Then he weighed the balance of his bow, checked its string, and must have found it satisfactory. He gave no sign of anything, though, responding to neither the crowd nor to Revali's laughing jeers.

 _No. No, the latter isn't just confidence, nor even arrogance. It is contempt. An elevation of the self beyond one's surroundings and one's peers. As if being chosen arbitrarily by a magic sword could serve to act as true proof of an inherent goodness, or strength of arm translate into something more profound._

So, that was that. She wanted Revali to win.

The trumpets were blown, and all sense of revelry disappeared from the Rito Champion as Revali knelt on the ground, spreading his wings to either side of him. His eyes were locked on the Hylian Champion, who was sinking down into a crouch, legs gathering power for a leap.

The crack of a Sheikah explosive.

The sand of the arena rose in a cloud as a whirlwind erupted to life in its center, and Zelda shielded her face with her arms.

Link's sword passed through the spot where Revali had been as the Rito Champion rocketed into the air, rising even more quickly than Link had charged. In the space of a heartbeat he had cleared the entire coliseum, and the Rito spectators cheered and laughed as he flew.

Then Revali came back down, and he was a shock of dark blue flitting around the arena with a grace and alacrity that should have been impossible for someone his size—he was as agile, or more, than a sparrow. He was everywhere at once, and Zelda could not track him with her eye—every time she focused he seemed to have already moved to the other side of the stadium.

Arrows pelted Link's shield like raindrops on a metal roof, and when Zelda stopped trying to follow the avian warrior and turned her eyes to the earth-bound one she saw that the Hero was nearly _pirouetting_ , keeping up with Revali's flight in a way that the spectators could not. Every one of Revali's arrows would have struck directly home, except that Link stopped them with carefully angled steel.

Then one of the arrows hit the ground.

Link came up from the roll and leaped into the air. His bow was in his hands.

Something he did then made Zelda's eyes hurt. It was very hard to look at.

Revali soared higher. Nobody would see them until much later, but in his wake he left behind twenty broken arrows, which had been fired nearly simultaneously and which he had only barely been able to avoid. In the moment Zelda thought she saw Revali's eyes wide with shock, but he was moving too quickly to be sure.

Another flash and then Revali was in Link's face, faster than the Hero could draw his sword, wielding his own weapon with pure, unadulterated aggression. Link parried, then drew and swung in one motion, but Revali was already in the air again.

A gust of wind nearly threw Link off of his feet, and the Hero regained his footing at the same moment that Revali landed, all grace, on the other side of the arena.

"Watch, now!" Revali shouted over the adulation of the crowd, spreading his wings once more. "Keep your eyes on this—the next exchange will decide it!"

Zelda had to unclench her hands, lest she tear her gloves.

Link was standing in one place and then he was charging, and the stadium held it breath.

Revali shouted: "HA!"

The breath was pulled from Zelda's chest by the sudden shift in air pressure. She felt herself being pulled, and her hands closed hard on the railing for fear that she might be lifted toward the sky.

The maelstrom that was born in the center of the arena was like a cyclone being born directly underneath Link's feet. Zelda could see the Hero's eyes widening as the wind lifted him from the ground—and then he went hurtling straight up, his ascent like Revali's, save that Link's was an uncontrolled tumble.

Revali's laughter was nearly lost in the wind's roar as he flew up and above the arena, circling the outside of the whirlwind. Zelda craned her neck to look up, to see as the greatest warrior among the Rito rose to sink his talons into the Hylian Champion.

The Rito crowd standing atop the stadium spread their wings and rose, catching stray currents to gain a better vantage point.

Zelda saw as Link somehow righted himself midair—and then his bow tumbled and spun away, torn from his back by the gale.

Revali came around, his own bow in his hands, arrow firmly nocked. The finishing blow.

Link spun. There was a flash between the two warriors.

A sound reached the arena, like a wooden spoon hitting the bottom of an iron pot.

The wind died.

Link and Revali both fell. Link was conscious, but Revali plainly wasn't.

The other Rito swooped in, grabbing the warriors from the air.

Amid the cheering of the crowd, the unbelieving excitement at the sheer spectacle they had just borne witness to, the enthusiasm that was so infectious that Zelda was nearly caught up in it, she saw an object hit the ground. It took her a moment to recognize it for what it was; it looked unusual.

After all, Link's shield had one of Revali's feathers stuck to it.

 _I suppose one must have been dislodged when it struck Revali in the head. He should have taken his cue from Urbosa._

She had to admit: that had been an impressive throw.

* * *

The wall of her amnesia threatened to tumble completely, as if her purposefully pulling away a single brick had compromised its structure.

 _Perhaps it has,_ she thought, as she grabbed hold of the power and shoved it back into place. _Still, I cannot afford to let everything break yet._

That was not an honest representation of the panic she felt, trying to maintain her own memory blockage. She was aware, on an instinctual level, of two things: the first was that, if she remembered everything all at once, the memories of the goddess would harm her. They might not kill her, but they would certainly _change_ her. Perhaps she would charge to Link's side, possessed of an immense need to see him safe, echoing the attachment that the goddess had to one of the Heroes of a long-lost age. Perhaps she would become the girl who had fallen in battle with the Calamity a century ago. She might lose herself, becoming someone completely different, lost in a maelstrom of memory and knowledge that she had no way to categorize.

That was the second point: she wasn't ready yet. Whatever would happen should only happen naturally. Something inside of her had constructed this wall of her amnesia, protecting her from herself until she was ready to be... everything.

With the power she reinforced the wall, held it, waited. Waited. Waited.

The wall stilled. Her amnesia held. She was in no danger of remembering more than she should.

She sighed in relief, opened her eyes, and turned.

And jumped, when she saw that Kass and Paya were both staring at her.

"Oh!" _How must I have looked, just now?_ "Please excuse me. I just recovered one of my memories. This one was... interesting."

Kass smiled, that same disarming smile he had used when they met on the road, and something in it made her feel more at ease even though she'd known him for less than an hour. "Yes, Paya was just telling me about your lost memory." That was something of a shock; but, if Kass already knew so much about her, then it made sense that Paya would tell him more, to contextualize what was happening. "I imagine you must have many interesting stories to share, given how much time and effort you've put into rediscovering your place in the world. May I ask what you remembered just now?"

 _I remembered feeling a kind of petty desire to see Link brought low, and putting that hope into Revali in spite of the fact that I thought he was arrogant and foolish._

"I remembered Revali. Before he was confirmed as a Champion, there was an exhibition held where the Champions showed off their martial prowess before the gathered peoples of Hyrule—he challenged the Hero to single combat."

It was hard to be sure, but Zelda thought Kass looked excited by that prospect. "Indeed? That must have been quite the sight. Granted that he could not wield the Master Sword, but Revali is thought by scholars to be the greatest Rito warrior in modern history, as well as a peerless scholar of flight. Tell me, what did you think of him?"

She winced before she could stop herself, and Kass laughed.

"Well, that's fair. You know, my teacher used to say that Revali's skill was only eclipsed by his arrogance, and that everything he achieved was in pursuit of convincing the world that he was who he thought himself to be." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Perhaps that is the way of some heroes."

Zelda and Paya exchanged glances; there was nothing graceful for them to say.

Kass seemed to realize this. It occurred to Zelda, in fact, that he may have said what he did specifically so that he would get the last word as he began to walk away. He said amiably as he walked back toward the village spire, "Well, we can discuss the idea more as we ascend. I'd like to take you to meet the elder now. He will surely have ideas about how best to approach the Divine Beast."

"Of course," Zelda said.

The question of how to reach the Divine Beast, who hung in the sky, had been bothering her for some time.

 _Perhaps I could ride one of the flying Guardians._

She and Paya followed Kass as the afternoon wore on.


	44. The Beast's Shadow

Kaneli was asleep—no evil on its own, Kass reflected, and certainly the elder could not be blamed for taking rest when time allowed for it. Still, in this one specific instance, as Kass stood at the entrance to the elder's roost with his two guests, he could not help reflecting that a more energetic—not younger, just more energetic!—elder would have lent this meeting the sort of gravitas that it deserved.

 _Nothing for it,_ thought he. Kass inclined his head to Zelda and Paya. "Give me just a moment and I will rouse Kaneli."

Two very different looks flashed across Paya and Zelda's faces. Hylian and Sheikah expressions were not much like Rito expressions, but after years in his teacher's service he could read them easily enough: Paya was shocked, though not quite affronted, that they would need to disturb the rest of a venerated elder. Zelda's was more difficult, more analytical, as her brow knit and she scowled.

"Will that be necessary?" Zelda's tone was soft and lilting, not quieter than usual but gentler. She would have made an excellent singer. "We would not want to waste the elder's time and interrupt him, besides."

Looking at her, Kass thought that Zelda seemed very young, and she was intensely and mindfully thoughtful in the way that the very young could sometimes be. What a warm feeling, to be confronted with the earnestness that his own daughters might show in the years ahead. "It is a shame, but I think it best to wake him. Whatever we decide should pass by the elder, in any case, and he has more experience in dealing with difficult questions than anyone in the village... well, save you, of course."

That resolved, Kass stepped into the center of the room, taking in Kaneli.

The elder of the village certainly looked the part: he was nearly as large as he was old, and his sense of size was enhanced by his snowy, carefully braided beard. His beak was a point of darkness in that field of white, and it was difficult to draw the line between his beard, his brow, and his hair. He reclined in a massive rocking chair, and as he slept he seemed to have closed out the entire world.

Kass knew Kaneli well, of course; already old when Kass was born, Kaneli had always been present. For all that he played up the image to the contrary, the village elder's senses were still sharp.

Kass cleared his throat.

Kaneli opened one enormous eye, which took a moment to focus on his guest and another to register who it was.

"Oh, Kass," the elder said, shifting in his chair so that his posture was straighter. "What brings you here, my boy? Where is—"

Whatever Kaneli had been about to ask died in his mouth as his eyes found Zelda and Paya. The young women would not be able to recognize the way that his pupils dilated, how his eyes shifted focus to take in every detail of them without needing to dart from spot to spot, but Kaneli's concentration was obvious to Kass. Yes, the old man was still sharp, and could be much sharper when he wanted to be.

"Elder," Kass said, "I would like to introduce Zelda and Paya." The girls bowed very formally. Kaneli did not bow in return; he did not even nod; he stared.

"Do my eyes deceive me," Kaneli said, "or is that a Sheikah Slate on your hip?"

Zelda stared for a moment, uncomprehending, and then looked down at the device she wore. "Yes, it is. Do you recognize it, elder?"

"I do," Kaneli said, only showing his mounting excitement in the way his talons danced on the floor. "The Sheikah Slates are like the Divine Beasts, only held by those who have been marked as Champions, worthy of their place in the fight against the Calamity. To see you carrying one, to see it activated, you _must_ be—" And then, just as it had been picking up speed, the thought crashed in a way that was written across Kaneli's face. He said, more to himself than to the room, "Wait, what am I saying? The Champions all died a century ago. There's no way that one of them made their way here." He shook his broad head, then turned his attention more fully to Zelda. "Tell me, are you descended from one of the Champions?"

Well. All things considered, it was as good a guess as could be made.

In spite of his role as a storyteller, Kass did not actually enjoy telling other people's stories on their behalf. Every story was better told by the heart that had experienced it, by the mind that had categorized it and committed it to memory. The last few years of his teacher's life, Kass had spent a great deal of time arguing with the old bard about what stories should or should not be told, especially when those actors were still living. The two of them had never seen quite eye-to-eye, especially with regards to the ballads that the old master had written about Zelda.

Still. Seeing Zelda weighing the options, anticipating how much more complicated the conversation would be when the whole truth came out, Kass prepared to reach outside the remit of his own storytelling.

As he drew breath to speak, the long-lost Princess of Hyrule said, "I am not descended from one of the Champions, no. Rather, I trace my ancestry to the Royal Family of Hyrule."

Kass could not suppress the thrill he felt. _Perfect! Not even a lie, but it hides the worst parts of the truth—the inconvenient parts._ He thought perhaps Paya would have been likewise impressed, but the Sheikah woman's eyes only widened, almost imperceptibly.

For his part, Kaneli's excitement abated not at all; if anything, it seemed to flair up, his talons audibly scraping against the floor. "Incredible," the elder said. "To think that a descendant of that house should have survived the Calamity—and with the Sheikah Slate there can be no doubt as to your claim. A _princess_ , no less. Can I ask this of a princess? That runs counter to all propriety. But, at the same time, what choice do I have?" The elder got to his feet, placed his wings behind his back, and bowed to Zelda. "Descendant of the royal family, please forgive me this impertinence, but on behalf of all the Rito I must request your help."

Zelda returned his bow. "I have come to offer that very help, honored elder."

Kaneli straightened only when Zelda did, and for all the strain that the motion must have put on his back he looked enormously, almost deliriously happy. "Thank you. In that case, I will be frank: the Divine Beast, Vah Medoh, represents a danger to the Rito. It patrols our skies like a jealous tyrant, unleashing terrible weapons against anyone who climbs too high. As a result, our people have been earth-bound for the first time in a very long while. There are those among our people who are restless beneath the yoke of Vah Medoh's threat, and have even sought to do battle with it. It will not be long before one of them is permanently injured, or worse.

"It is said that only a Champion may tame a Divine Beast—but one who carries the blood of the royal family, like the princess of a century ago, must also have the same power. There are no Champions left, after the Calamity returned, and so I must ask that you take up this task on behalf of the fallen: board the Divine Beast and calm it, so that our people will be free to roam the skies once more." He bowed again, sweeping one of his wings across the floor. "You are the only hope of our people."

"I accept this task," Zelda said, back straight and her hands folded in front of her, radiating the grace and poise of someone who had been born into a position that demanded such discipline. "However, though I wish it were otherwise, I cannot reach the Divine Beast unaided. I will need Rito expertise to carry out this mission."

Kaneli nodded, then, as if he had been anticipating this problem. "It is true that reaching Vah Medoh will be the most dangerous and most difficult portion of this entire affair. To succeed, I recommend that you seek out Teba. As head-strong as he is, he is the most skilled flier among the Rito in a century, and if anyone can help you reach the Divine Beast, he can."

Kass said, "We've heard that Teba and Harth tried to reach the Divine Beast already. We passed by Harth on our way here, but Teba was nowhere to be seen."

Kaneli's expression darkened. "Yes, I suppose not. Unfortunately, I do not know where he is. I recommend asking his wife; if anyone knows where he currently roosts, then she will."

Zelda and Paya bowed again; Kass inclined his head to the elder, who nodded in return. As Kaneli took his seat, Kass looked out and across the short distance to the home where Teba and Saki were raising their son together. It was such a short distance, after all, and the air so open.

He was not surprised to find that Saki was standing near the railing of her home, eyes locked on the two girls who were stepping out of the elder's residence. There was so much apprehension in her eyes, Kass thought; but, maybe, that apprehension was also colored by hope.

Kass followed after Zelda and Paya, giving them spoken directions for the short distance to their destination.

* * *

Saki met the group outside of the door to her home, visibly nervous as she waited for their arrival.

Zelda had been struck by Kass's plumage; it could be said that Saki's nearly floored her. Purples and pinks flowed together in a kind of cascade that caught the light of day and suffused it across the Rito's entire body, so that she seemed almost to glow. Where most Rito wore their hair in relatively simple styles, Saki's was done in a pair of bright pink rolls that swept around the back of her head. The effect was almost aggressive in how feminine-coded it was, and suggested to Zelda that Rito concepts of gender expression may have been even more pronounced than Hylian ones.

"Saki!" Kass's greeting was warm, boisterous. "How are you, my friend? You have not visited Amali and I in so long. Is Tulin still feeling shy around the girls?"

It was a testament to Kass's ability to read people, to see what they needed in any given moment, that Saki's nervousness was replaced by a kind of stunned amusement.

"Shy? I don't know that I would say shy, exactly. But I think you know that, too." Then she shook her head, sending her curls bouncing, and turned to Zelda with a bow. "Anyway! Forgive my intrusion, but I overheard you speaking with the elder. Is it true that you intend to help my husband in the fight against Medoh?"

Zelda nodded. "Yes, though I would not say I will be helping Teba—if we are lucky, then he won't be directly involved in the fighting at all."

That was a heady assertion, and she felt it as she said it, felt it in the widening of Saki's eyes and Kass's regard pressuring her from the side, but it was _true_ and she stuck to it. If she had her way then none of the Rito would need to lift a wing in the actual fighting.

Saki blinked blearily, then nodded, paused, and nodded again. "Thank you. Teba is so intent on bringing down Medoh, I... I fear for him. I fear for where his mind takes him, seeing the Divine Beast hanging in the sky. Seeing him like that, even when we must take care of Tulin, makes me feel so... helpless. I am sorry I cannot offer you any more than where he has gone." She gestured with one wing, to the northwest. "He has gone to the Flight Range, in Dronoc's Pass at the base of the Hebra Mountains."

Kass shook his head. "I shouldn't be surprised. My apologies for bothering you, Saki. We'll bring your husband back, safe and sound."

Zelda was about to try to pick apart the language that Kass had used there, the way he had very casually inserted himself into the group that would be confronting Vah Medoh. She was interrupted in her travels down this path, however, when Saki spoke again.

"Princess!" That word was given special weight, a kind of awkward power as Saki spoke it, exactly because she was not sure if it fit. The irony of that struck Zelda, and it was bitter and strange. "I've heard rumors about what's been happening. All over Hyrule, word is spreading. You told the elder that you are the descendant of the royal family, and I'm sure that's true, but... but that isn't the story that's being told. The story is about a returned princess who is trying to set right the world that went wrong. About _the_ princess. About Zelda."

She felt the weight of that story, then, as if it were a person standing in the room, watching her. As if it were Hylia's power waiting inside of her. As if it were Link, eternally patient, noble in his suffering. As if it were Paya, who loved without knowing if she should allow herself to.

It was not as heavy as it would have been before. Perhaps her shoulders were stronger.

She replied, "This story includes your husband coming home, Saki, regardless of the darkness that clings to his face or to his thoughts. He will return soon."

Those words were power; that promise was power. Zelda watched as that power filled Saki, swirling inside of her, and she had to fight down her own reaction to the other woman's hope. Saki bowed.

Zelda and Paya and Kass stepped out. They walked to Revali's landing. Two paragliders and one pair of wings bore them across the waters, toward Dronoc's Pass.

Vah Medoh turned slowly overhead, blind to the petty dramas of mortal lives.

* * *

Dronoc's Pass was cold, the kind of bitter, biting cold that could slice through clothing and reach down into one's bones, seizing the marrow and hardening it, turning flesh to stone and blood to crystal. Kass moved comfortably, protected by the thick insulation of his feathers, but Paya and Zelda's normal clothes had not been enough. As on Mount Lanayru, they were chewing on a meal made from hot peppers and sunshrooms, the warmth of that food spreading through their bodies, fighting off the chill. The wind howled around them as they walked toward the Flight Range.

The Flight Range, Zelda thought, was ill-named—it was not so much a _range_ as it was a _pit_ out of which gusted a perpetual updraft of such strength that its howl could be heard from a kilometer away. It must have been quite deep, she reflected, and the heat of the earth must have been very near to the surface in this region, lending a sort of amusing irony to the cold in which they now walked. Even the peppers would not have been enough, had it not been for the ruby circlet she wore, and she wondered if rubies drew their heat from the earth. _Perhaps Yunobo would know_.

A kind of cabin stood over one edge of the Flight Range, old and weathered but sturdy enough to have survived years of bitter cold and relentless winds. The trio made their slow march up to it, and simply getting out of the wind had a very refreshing effect. The gale seemed removed, less powerful, when they stepped inside of the faded walls and found a fire burning beneath a cook pot. As near as Zelda could tell, no one had actually used the pot in some time; perhaps they could, before they left. Against one wall of the cabin there was a shelf, and against that shelf stood a Rito-made Swallow Bow and several bundles of arrows. Zelda resisted the temptation to help herself to them; very likely, someone else would need them more than she did.

The wall looking out over the range was open, and beyond it lay a deck much like Revali's Landing. A lone figure sat on that deck, facing the Flight Range and tending to a bow that he was turning in his wings.

"Pardon me," Zelda said to his back.

The warrior—she did not know why she thought warrior, but she did, and no other word fit the air that the Rito gave off—looked over his shoulder at her. His plumage was as white as the snow outside, and he wore twin braids on either side of his face. She saw, in him, an echo of something she had once grasped and failed to understand. Yes, this was a warrior.

"Yeah?" Teba's response felt laconic to the point of being practiced.

"Are you Teba?" she asked, because it was the polite thing to say, in spite of the fact that Kass was standing by the bow and arrows, examining them for himself, and could have easily confirmed it one way or another.

"I am." The warrior turned back to his bow. "I'm also rather busy. You should go."

"Busy making Saki sick with worry." It was the harshest thing Zelda had heard Kass say, and even then his tone was not accusatory; he was just stating a fact as he stepped past Zelda and onto the balcony. He nodded to her, signaling that this could be left to him. "Still aiming to fight Medoh alone, are you?"

Some part of Zelda was tired, she realized, as much as she also wanted to assert herself. She stepped back into the cover of the building, and Paya stood behind her. She waited.

She expected that Kass's involvement would merit more of a reaction from Teba than her own had; instead, the warrior actually turned back to his bow, not even giving a dismissive grunt to acknowledge the bard.

Kass left Teba no options, taking a seat next to his taciturn compatriot and looking out over the Flight Range. After a moment's silence: "I don't come here enough."

"You've never trained here," Teba responded.

"Nor do I need to." Kass shook his head. "No, you misunderstand. I'm not saying that I should be here, polishing up my martial skills for the preservation of the village against potential threats—or concrete ones," he said as he gestured at Medoh in the distance. "That's what people like you are for. What I mean is that there is history here, layered on every stone as if it were paint, growing richer in the wind and the sun rather than fading. There are _stories_ here, soaked into the stone and carried on the air, and it is those that I should concern myself with."

There was a moment where Zelda thought that Teba would not react to that, either—but the moment passed, and the warrior looked up from his bow, first at Vah Medoh and then at Kass. "That is foolish."

"Foolish," Kass said, urging his friend on—for surely they were friends, Zelda thought.

"Foolish," Teba agreed. "You concern yourself with trifles, and histories, and poetry. But the world is all around us, Kass. The world is up there." He gestured with his wing toward the Divine Beast. "The world cares very little for your stories, and if we wish to address it on its terms than we have to _act_ , not talk." Back to his bow, though the motion of his wingtips was somewhat more restrained, more hesitant. "There's nothing to be gained from looking to the past."

"From looking to Revali, you mean."

Teba scoffed, harsh and dismissive. "If he were here now I would beg him for his help, but he isn't. He died like all the other Champions, and I'm sure that, in the same situation, he would die again." A shock of real, animal anger ran through Zelda at that, but she didn't act on it even though the pressure of it shoved against the inside of her chest.

Kass's tone was very gentle: "Do you think that you will fare any better, my friend?"

Teba did not answer. He kept examining his bow, even though there could not possibly be any aspect of it that bore further scrutiny.

Kass sighed, staring out over the Flight Range, and the wind howled. He was quiet for half a minute. Then: "Saki thinks that you mean to die, you know."

Teba raised his head once more, his eyes watchful and soft.

"She doesn't say it out loud, of course. She fears that speaking the idea will make it real. But you can see it in her eyes, when she looks toward the Flight Range: she fears that you have lost your reason, and that you see the weight of the Divine Beast as being more terrible than your own life. That you will leave her and Tulin behind in the name of protecting them from something you cannot defeat."

The warrior shook his head, but he did not try to mount a defense or a denial. He visibly struggled to find any words at all, and it was only after a great deal of effort that he managed, "I thought that Harth and I would be able to do it. We came close, I think—very near to bow range. Another few seconds and we would have been able to pierce Vah Medoh's defenses with the bomb arrows. With even one of Vah Medoh's cannons disabled... but that doesn't matter. When Harth took that hit I thought he had died. I dropped my bow when I was diving after him, and I don't know where it landed. This one? He had it in reserve. But I caught him as he fell, and carried him back to the village. He wasn't conscious for most of the trip. Do you know what I thought, on the way back?"

Kass scowled with his eyes. "I don't suppose it was how difficult this would be to explain to his family."

Teba chuckled, but it was an unhappy sound. "What a gentle image of me you've managed to develop. Like a character in one of your poems."

"Ballads," Kass muttered under his breath. Then, louder: "What, then?"

"Harth was the only other person in the village who was willing to _try_ approaching Vah Medoh, and seeing him injured was going to frighten even the most stalwart of the remainder. All I could think was that I was going to have to go back up alone."

"Teba—"

"No. I am not finished." Teba set his bow down. For all the world he would not look at Kass again. Now he was facing the village itself, his eyes fixed on the stone spire in the distance. "I spoke to Saki and Tulin again before I left. I can't tell you how much it hurts me to leave them behind, Kass. You have better words. Always have. But... it hurts more than I can say."

Kass said, "You don't have to fight."

Teba was on his feet, now, wheeling on the bard, eyes bright and chest expanding. "Of course I have to fight! Somebody has to try to protect us from that thing!"

Kass got to his feet more slowly, dusted the snow from his feathers as he turned to face his friend. "Even if you cannot win? Even if you will almost _certainly_ die and leave your family behind? Deprive your wife of her husband, your son of his father?" His tone was low, still gentle, but he might as well have been jabbing Teba in the chest with every word. "To what _gain_ , Teba? Do you wish to be one of the sad fools that are the tragic footnotes of our common histories?" Kass gestured for silence before Teba could retort. "Do you know that, this morning, I thought about how I might break one of your wings?"

There was no answer to that.

The bard continued, "You're a fighter, and I'm not, so I couldn't just _do_ it. I thought about bringing a club. Hitting you when you least expected it. My knowledge in the combat arts is lacking, but I know just enough about anatomy to hit you with _some_ confidence that I wouldn't be grounding you for the rest of your life, but if I did? It would have been a fair trade."

Zelda could not have said why, but she expected Teba's reaction to this revelation to be negative—certainly it gave _her_ complicated enough feelings to contend with, and she was not the intended target of this theoretical assault. Teba, a taciturn warrior who seemed to care more about the principle of defense than the practical effect of his fighting, certainly seemed the kind to react with ill humor or even violence. But he surprised her by turning his eyes from Kass in shame. What to make of that?

But the bowman was not finished, not quite. "So what changed your mind? You aren't carrying a weapon, and I doubt those two girls over there could subdue me on your behalf."

"Well now," Kass said, taking the words from Zelda's mouth, "I wouldn't bet on that." He let that hang in the air, seeing if it would garner a reaction. When it didn't: "Believe it or not, Teba, we're here to help. Kaneli wanted us to convince you not to approach the Divine Beast, yes, but that's not the real reason we've come. Saki asked us to get you home safe, and we intend to—but I promised your wife that you would be safe _and_ sound, so I can hardly go injuring you without breaking your promise."

 _Now_ Teba reacted, taking in Kass at a glance before turning his eyes to Paya and Zelda. The weight of his regard was sharp ( _sharp like I was always afraid of Link's being sharp, but Teba is_ actually _weighing me_ ) and sure and quick. "You _can't_ fight, Kass. You're literally not able. And you've brought two flightless Hylians to test their prowess against Vah Medoh?" His eyes darted toward Zelda again, focused on the Sheikah Slate, and then away.

"A Hylian and a Sheikah, actually," Kass said, and he would have said more but Zelda cleared her throat and his eyes lit up as he looked to her.

She stepped out onto the deck, and Paya's footsteps behind her were just heavy enough to be audible. Being inside and out of the wind for only those few minutes had been a very soothing experience, one that made stepping back out into the _real_ cold breath-taking. Plumes of condensation rose into the air as she breathed. Something in that cold made her feel clean, and sure, and sharp, and _powerful_.

"I assure you that we will be of help. And though it is only through the use of paragliders, we _can_ move through the air."

Again he looked at the Sheikah Slate, but Teba shook his head with the kind of paternalistic surety that was inherent to men of strength who did not wish to lean on the strength of other people. "I'm sure that you're capable warriors in your own right, but Vah Medoh is something different. I don't know if Revali himself would have been able to fight it. It—"

"Enough."

There was another long silence as Teba and Paya and Kass all stared at her, one in indignity and one in shock and one in sheer, giddy curiosity. Let them stare; she'd meant it. This _was_ enough. She'd had enough. Enough of this dancing around the possibility of death, of the idea of what people could or couldn't do to protect themselves or the people they loved. How many times had she done this? How many times had she had to prove herself to different people, to be allowed _access_ to the battles that she had to wage to protect the world from an encroaching darkness? It was too much.

She said, "Tell me what we would have to do to prove ourselves suitably capable."

A flash of challenge from Teba, nearly anger, but something in her own expression must have stilled it because he relented. He gestured with his wing toward the pit in the center of the range. "There are a number of targets located throughout the range. If you strike all of them within three minutes, I would say you would be able to help in the fight against Vah Medoh."

Kass's indignity showed in his response: " _Three minutes?_ Teba, you are the _one_ Rito capable of that. How would—"

"Please point to the targets," Zelda said.

Teba grinned with his eyes. "They're hard to miss."

"Please humor me."

The grin shifted into a blank stare, and then Teba shrugged and strode to the edge of the platform. Zelda followed him, Paya at her side, and Kass stood on Teba's other side. One white wing pointed down into the storm of winds, which whipped the snow flurries in chaotic patterns difficult to follow with the eye. Still, even through the whirling haze of whiteness, it was possible to see the targets: concentric circles of red and white, flashes of color amidst the storm.

Around the targets, through the air, something moved and floated and shifted and _changed_. It was not energy, exactly. _Potential_ , Zelda thought, and decided that the word fit. The air was full of potential. That potential was everywhere, anywhere there was a breeze, but in the heart of the Flight Range it _hummed_. She could move that potential. Shape it. Control it.

 _Help me_ , she thought into the void, and the warm thoughts of her second mother moved around her and through her. Together they reached through the air, and the howl of the wind fell away as they moved that potential together. It was so easy, easier than moving her hand, and Zelda recalled how difficult it had been for Riju—

 _Riju is still learning_ , Urbosa spoke into her thoughts. _I am well-practiced. And as I am, so are you._

They moved that potential, gathering it, and the places in which the potential had been removed yawned, as if calling to have it returned, pulling against Zelda's will. The air shifted, and she felt it as the hairs on her head began to tingle. Nobody else had noticed. Nobody else could.

"You can see them, I trust." Teba's tone was level, very controlled. "Three minutes isn't much time, though, so—"

Zelda snapped her fingers.

There was a flash of white and a roar.

Kass and Teba jumped, looking to the sky as if searching for the offending cloud. Paya's reaction was much less pronounced; the Sheikah woman only nodded to Zelda. _She must have seen me snap my fingers._

Thunder echoed back from every side of the Range.

"Forgive me, Teba," Zelda said as the echo faded, as the lightning gave way to the wind again. "I'm afraid I got a bit ahead of myself. Did I strike all of the targets?"

"Did you—what?" Teba blinked at her, then turned back to the chasm. Kass joined him. The two must have come to the realization at the same time, because at once they began tracking the former location of every painted sign.

All of them, of course, had been obliterated in the lightning strike. All that remained of them was shards at the bottom of the range, smoking and charred beyond recognition. Zelda didn't need to ask, though she had to admit that she relished the moment of real, genuine confusion that both men were experiencing.

With their suspicions confirmed, Kass and Teba reacted very differently: the former turned back to Zelda with an excited flourish, throwing his wings wide as if to proclaim his amazement—and Teba stared at her, eyes hard, but he was no longer measuring her.

 _He is measuring himself,_ Urbosa's thoughts answered the unspoken question. _Revali wore that same look, once._

Kass said, "Ask her, Teba." Teba looked to him, the turn of his eyes reluctant. "I know you disdain my preoccupation with stories, but surely you can see the import when one comes to _you_."

It would be good—no, it would be _fulfilling_ to have him ask her. She could not have said why, but she did not actually like Teba; something about his sadness, about his resolution toward duty, reminded her too much of Link. Or, maybe, it reminded her too much of her father. To see that set aside, to see that pride and surety give way to humility, humility directed toward _her_ , would be sweet indeed.

 _That is folly,_ she chided herself. _Why do I want him to acknowledge how powerful I am?_

 _I am powerful,_ she responded.

 _I do not need him to acknowledge that for it to be so._

 _Is it so wrong to want to be seen as I am? To be asked, simply, to do the things that are needed of me?_

 _They are needed. Do not be arrogant. I am powerful; that does not make me better. It does not make me more worthy._

She was, for a moment, deeply ashamed of her own desire. Something in that shame was familiar. It let her center herself.

Before Teba could speak, she bowed to him, low and deep. She could not see how the two Rito reacted, and did not try to imagine it, keeping her eyes trained on the ground.

"Please, Teba. I wish to see the Divine Beast restored, and to free the imprisoned spirit of Revali from a century of captivity. I cannot do this alone—I cannot even _reach_ Vah Medoh alone. Will you allow me to help you?"

The sound of talons scraping against wood as Teba walked toward her.

Then his answer: "Absolutely not."

She winced. _I deserve that, I suppose. Still, I can't leave it there._ "I hope that you will—"

Then he touched her shoulder, urging her to straighten, so she did. He stepped back, then, and looked her in the eyes—not measuring her but _looking at her_ , so intense that his gaze was its own form of communication.

 _Here is a man who is not used to speaking his feelings. What an odd pair he and Saki make._

"You will not help me," he said. "I will be the one helping you."

As if answering him, Vah Medoh's roar filled the entire pass. All four gathered looked to the sky, but still the Divine Beast circled the air above Rito Village, not minding the shape or passing of the lives beneath it.

Something in that cry, in the sight of Vah Medoh above his home, elicited a nod from Teba.

"I will carry you to Vah Medoh."

* * *

They had tried to warn Kass against coming along, of course. First Teba, then Paya, then Zelda, and each in turn had made an excellent argument. He was no great warrior; he was not an especially skilled flier; Vah Medoh would find him an easy target, not least because of his vibrant plumage; if Teba owed his safety to his family, then surely Kass, with his many daughters, owed much more. And these were all quite convincing! If he had been another person—if he had lived another life in another time—then he surely would have been persuaded. He could not deny that he felt a real and terrible fear at the prospect of seeing Vah Medoh up close; if Harth had been clipped, then Kass really _would_ present an easy target.

But fear meant very little, didn't it? Here was the culmination of an adventure, the climax of a story, and he would be privy to it. His teacher would surely rise from his cairn and haunt Kass's family for generations if the living bard did not make it his mission, his _purpose_ , to witness the legendary battle that was about to take place. How else could he meaningfully commit it to song? How else could he ever expect to convince anyone of the grandiosity of the battle, of the nobility of a young woman who had already died once in service of a world that had spent so long rejecting her? No. No, he could not be kept away.

He had not said those things, of course. Teba would have probably taken a note from Kass's book and beaten him until he could not fly, and he would have been justified in doing so. So, instead, Kass had presented only a single argument: Zelda wanted Paya along for the battle, and Paya wished to be there to support Zelda. Though he was strong—easily stronger than Kass—Teba could not carry both women on his back. It was Kass or nothing.

Ah, how clever he'd felt when the three had started to argue among each other, about logistics and necessity and danger. When Teba had argued that Paya didn't _need_ to be present, Kass knew he had won. A single statement, that was all it had taken.

And now. _Now_.

Now the wind howled around him in a gale as the updraft of the Flight Range carried him higher and higher, and his shoulders roared under the strain of supporting Paya on his back—Paya who was, in truth, considerably heavier than Kass himself. Who had ever decided that Hylians and Sheikah shouldn't have hollow bones? It seemed like poor planning, to him.

"Are you all right?" Paya's voice in his ear, soft and concerned. Afraid, too, but trying not to show it. Something in her voice made him think of his daughters again.

"Oh, don't worry about me. I won't pretend that I could do this forever," and he was running out of breath just trying to talk while keeping his wings steady, never mind actually beating them to climb, "but I should be able to manage for a while longer. Are _you_ all right? It must feel frigid up here." To say nothing of the height; some land-bound people were frightened by the sight of the earth far below them, he'd been told.

"I am warm enough, thank you." Her body was very low against his, and she'd pressed her face to the back of his neck to try to reduce the wind resistance, but now she lifted her face and looked ahead. "I think we are drawing close."

"We are."

The Divine Beast was a growing blot on the horizon, now some tens of meters lower than the band approaching it. Kass could not quite keep up with Teba, but that was as well; it was expected that Zelda would be able to do most of the fighting herself.

Though, now that he thought of it, Kass had no idea what Zelda combating a Divine Beast might look like.

"Paya," he said, "you've been present at all of the confrontations with the Divine Beasts, yes? Would you mind telling me what we can expect? It might help me to maneuver more safely in the approach."

She spent a few moments gathering her thoughts. "Usually, the battle will begin on the approach toward the Divine Beast. In ancient times, the Divine Beasts were designed to be deployed against the Calamity and its armies, and all of them have defenses that allow them to fight groups of attackers. Distance is, undoubtedly, the best defense against each of them."

"Then I will be sure to stay back." Teba was climbing again. Where did he get the energy for it? Kass beat his wings, hard, and only barely matched the rate of ascent.

"Once the defenses are breached, Zelda will board the Divine Beast—and that is usually when the Blight, a manifestation of Ganon's power, will reveal itself. The Blights are in some ways more dangerous than the Beasts themselves, but Zelda has gotten very good at containing them."

A manifestation of Ganon's power. _There_ was an idea, then. Records of what the Calamity looked like were scant, and depictions of it even moreso; the number of people who had seen it and lived to tell the tale a century ago numbered less than ten. A Blight was surely not the same thing as the Calamity, but it must have carried its own dark majesty. A preface, if he let himself indulge, that might bridge the gap in understanding the Calamity's full terror.

"I would like to see that," he said.

He became very aware of the strength of her grip on his shoulders; she was not hurting him, but she _could_.

"No," she said. "No, you would not."

He nodded. Her grip loosened. She probably didn't realize how hard she'd clenched, just now.

 _Like my daughters, indeed._

The sound of Vah Medoh's roar, on the ground, was like a bird of prey on an impossible scale; removed, distant, telling of a danger that might close with one before a defense could be mounted. Terrifying, to be sure. It had kept him from sleeping on many nights, to say nothing of the rest of his family.

The sound of Vah Medoh's roar, in the sky, was like an apocalypse. The aural shockwave buffeted Kass with such force that it was all he could do to maintain his bearing and keep from losing Paya altogether. His passenger was shouting something, but he could not hear over the Divine Beast's screech.

He hadn't understood, before. He hadn't understood how afraid he should have been. Something in that roar changed that, forced him to confront his smallness.

He fought through the fear, gathered himself as the screech subsided, shouted over his shoulder: "What did you say?"

" _Something is wrong! It's coming!_ "

He had been avoiding looking at Vah Medoh. A fear response, perhaps. He forced himself to look now, and instantly regretted it.

A cloud rose from the Divine Beast's back, black in its body and lit by the roiling luminescent purples and reds of shifting fire and lightning as he watched.

 _It is not a cloud. It is a body. I am seeing the body of the Blight._

The Blight rose above the Divine Beast, abandoning its post, twisting and turning in the air, condensing and shifting and transforming. It howled, and that howl was quieter than the roar of Vah Medoh but more terrible still. It was focused. It was coming for them. He could see as its bearing shifted, as the storm snaked through the air like an echo of the Calamity itself.

Paya rolled off of his back. He shouted, terrified that he had dropped her, prepared to dive and to catch her—and then her paraglider was open, and the updraft pulled her higher than he was. She was not looking at him, he saw; her eyes were fixed on the cloud. And, perhaps, on Zelda.

The Blight condensed. He could not see the form that it took in the air, but he knew that it was an echo of Ganon. A ruiner of nations. He saw that it had wings.

Then he saw the light of dawn roaring to life on Teba's back. He nearly looked away, but forced his eyes to remain there fixed as Zelda leapt into the open sky. She did not use her paraglider. She was enshrouded in light.

There was a sound, as consuming as Ganon's roar.

It took a moment for him to recognize it, and when he did he had to fight down his thrill.

The air was filled with the beating of mighty wings.


	45. A People Who Flew

It was said, in the days before the founding of the kingdom of Hyrule, that the Hylians were known by a different name. More, they were known to only be one half of an entire soul: the other half took the form of an enormous bird, who by Hylia's grace would carry the terrestrial people through the sky. Only that unity, earth and sky, made the Hylians complete. Only that was the perfect encapsulation of the love of the Goddess.

Revali was not what one would call a man of faith. A man of learning, certainly. A man of ability? No one could possibly argue. A man of integrity? Peerless. A man of courage? There was none braver. But he had never been a man of faith, not really. Could anyone blame him? There had been so many concerns in the physical world that he had never had space to consider what might exist in parallel to it, so much to do with the effects of ancient conflict that he'd never taken the time to consider what had _informed_ those conflicts.

But a century was a lot of time. It was _so_ much time. A year was a great deal of time, if you took a moment to reflect on it. A month, too, if you were waiting for an event. A day could be the length of an entire life. An hour, spent waiting, might be an eternity.

So, yes. A century was a lot of time. And Revali, once he'd exhausted himself in his attempts to be free, had taken a lot of that time to think to himself.

He'd never been a man of faith, but he had enjoyed the stories that the elders told of what Hylia was really like and why the orthodoxy of the Hylians was wrong about her. That Hylians were one half of a soul, and that birds were the other half—why, what would the whole soul be like, then? Surely, the elders had said, this harmonious perfection was found in the Rito. So it was that the Goddess had saved the Hylians in days long past by lifting them into the sky, but she had not done this for the completed people. Why would she have to, when they could fly? What had they to fear?

He never believed that story. Hylia was a Hylian god. It was in her name. She loved Hylians best, if she was real—and by now Revali was confident that she existed—and there was no getting around that. The elders had only been making themselves comfortable, describing a universe in which the Rito could be the center of a world that did not care about them at all. They, who had forgotten even the power of flight, were supposed to believe that they were the most beloved of the Heavens.

Revali had clawed at their history, seeking purchase in the firmament of their legacy. He believed not in Hylia, nor the Rito—he believed, firstly, in himself. If he could believe in himself enough, if he could master the skies as the Rito had in days long since lost to history, then perhaps he could spread that mastery, that belief, to the rest of his people. They could have the heavens for themselves again, would have no need to call on the gods.

But it was a nice story, still.

Of the Champions, Revali was the scout—and here he was, reduced to a sentinel, bound to a single place. Dead. Chained. He tried to free himself, of course, and who knows if he might have succeeded if he'd been so chosen by some arbitrary quirk of destiny? But he could not. He tried until it made no more sense to try, and then he stopped. He turned his eyes outward, focusing on the other Champions, watching them.

Urbosa kept fighting, would probably continue until she ceased to exist. She didn't know when she was beaten; Revali could appreciate that ignorance.

Mipha _watched_ , but her eyes were set ever on the castle. Was she even aware of the other Champions in the way that Revali was? _Could_ she be? He wasn't sure.

Daruk waited. To think, someone in this situation could _wait_ , so comfortable in their own inevitable freedom that the world need only catch up to their expectations. Just like Daruk, then. It would be admirable if it wasn't so... insipid.

Revali couldn't do these things. He didn't have Urbosa's indomitable willingness to struggle without purchase, nor Mipha's single-minded devotion, nor Daruk's appalling ability to just _wait_. All of these were beyond him—beneath him? Beneath him.

He would have slept, if he could. Sleeping, even forever, seemed preferable to endless consciousness. He soon discovered, however, that he couldn't sleep. _Apparently,_ sleep was a function of the body, rather than the spirit. How convenient for the tormentor of the Champions.

Still. He thought, and his thoughts traveled down familiar paths, and though he could not sleep Revali began to dream. He dreamed in his wakefulness. He dreamed away a century.

While his compatriots were struggling in their ignorance, Revali soared through the skies of Hyrule. All around him were the Rito, not just of the Village but _all_ the Rito from all over the world, those more like birds and those less, and they were one flock, headed to one roost. He flew at their head, and they followed him, and all was well. They paid no mind to the earth below. There were no gods, no Ganon, no wars waged by stupid peoples whose feet would never leave the earth—only him. Only his people. Only the sky.

While his compatriots were imprisoned, Revali was free.

His dream was disturbed when Mipha's chains broke. He did not slip from sleep to wakefulness, because he had not slept—he simply saw as the Zora princess was pulled free by a golden light. He tried to dream again but did not get very far along that path before the sky was rent open once more and Daruk's laughter drowned out everything.

"Liberation," Revali muttered to himself in that endless purgatory, "is a noisy business."

Maybe he _was_ sleeping. Maybe that was why time was passing so differently, now, why the release of the other Champions seemed to be taking place with more and more rapid succession. Maybe that was why he could feel at peace, and not at _all_ dwell on how Zelda hadn't come for him yet, but he was probably _needed_ and thus would most _assuredly_ be next.

Maybe that was why Urbosa's freedom would have frightened him half to death if he hadn't already been dead. The lightning storm pulled him out of his lucidity as thunder rocked the darkness. His eyes were sharp, even in death, and he could see Urbosa reaching out to the golden light, and in the golden light he could see Zelda's face, joyous and hopeful and afraid all at once.

 _Well_ , he thought. _One must save the best for last, I suppose._

It had all happened so quickly. Had it only been days between all of the champions? Perhaps hours? One didn't need to be Daruk to be patient for that long. Why, it was only natural to see the imminence of his rescue and to anticipate it. But he was not a fledgling, to peep and squawk his eagerness. He could wait.

He _could_.

He did.

But an hour was an eternity. A day was many. And surely, _surely_ he had been waiting for another hundred years since Urbosa's release.

Still! Still, the time came, as it must.

The darkness above him grew brighter, like a spot in his vision if he still had physical eyes. Then it cracked. Then it broke, and a golden radiance both brighter and gentler than the light of day shone down on him. There was Zelda, shining gold, and didn't _she_ look sure of herself? After only three times, the princess seemed to consider herself an expert on this process.

"Took you long enough," he said.

Zelda was halfway to saying something when her mouth froze in a perfect expression of surprise. Whatever she'd meant to get out—whatever _wisdom_ or _urgency_ she'd meant to impart—was lost. Well, if it had been _that_ important, she probably couldn't have been stopped so easily.

"Come on, then!" Revali reached out with one wing. "What are you waiting for? It's time for me to save the day!"

She must have been convinced, because she smiled. "I suppose it is."

They reached across the dark.

* * *

The Blight closed with Zelda, its wings cutting through the air with a brutal precision. It did not have arms—only its wings—but in the talons of its left foot it clutched a long, thin sword, and in its right it held a bow that radiated the Malice. It was almost completely unarmored save for the plate that covered its face, and even that did not obscure its mouth, which hung wide and was full of glistening teeth as long as a Hylian's fingers. It was with those teeth, not its weapons, that it reached for the goddess reborn as she filled the sky with golden light. Its jaw widened, its fangs glistening inches from her face.

Its teeth closed on nothing.

A dark blue streak tore through the air in a wide arc above and away from the Blight. The beast roared, tracking the movement of its prey with its eyes, and began to climb.

Then the whirlwind hit it as it crossed into the influence of Revali's Gale, and it began to tumble. It roared again, exerting its own power—power of a greater scale than Revali's, though not so refined—to dispel the turbulence, righting itself.

Then Revali slammed into its chest, talons-first. It shrieked as he tore at it, and then the Ancient Short Sword was in his grip and he slashed across its chest.

"This is a _good_ sword," he said aloud. The Blight snapped at him with its teeth—and a direct bite would kill him, no doubt about that—and he cut across its jaw, forcing it back before kicking off and turning in a lazy arc away from it. The monster regained its bearings almost instantly, and Revali _did_ have to admire the speed with which it began to close the distance between them—but what was speed by itself, really? Something that could only fly straight at a high velocity was no better than Daruk's brute strength. Revali looked over his shoulder, taking note of how weighed down the monster was with its weapons, the width of its wings, how they were single pieces of skin rather than feathered, noting their range of movement. He calculated the thing's minimum turning radius at its current speed, and the result left him shaking his head in pity.

Half a second before it would have slammed into his back, Revali flared his wings and peeled up and away, somersaulting over the beast as it streaked by beneath him. He was already notching an arrow before he saw its back.

The monster roared as the arrow took it in the left shoulder-blade, near the joint controlling its wing. The arrow burst into purple flames and faded to nothing, but the monster still bled.

"Still," Revali said, going into a dive to lure the Blight into chasing him, "it's going to be hard to kill the thing with just this weapon. In fact, I'd say it's worse than useless."

Well, not exactly useless. A Swallow Bow was the very standard for craftsmanship among Rito bowyers. But for someone of his peerless skill? Someone who could claim, without artifice or exaggeration, to be the best of the Rito archers? Only an equally peerless weapon would do. So, no, the Swallow Bow was not useless, but it _was_ utterly unsuited to the task at hand and to the wing of the warrior who would wield it. As he pulled out of the dive and summoned his gale to rise at a speed that not even the Blight could keep up with, he let the bow go, and it spun off into oblivion. He began to rummage through the rest of Zelda's bows.

 _Revali,_ Zelda's voice said in that space they were sharing. _What are you doing._

"I am _trying_ to see if you have any weapons that will actually _harm_ our opponent. I'm beginning to have my doubts." A wooden bow good for distance firing but not suited to rapid use, a Hylian piece that had been corroded over time and wouldn't stand up to the tension necessary to pierce the Blight's hide... nothing but sub-par options.

 _Sub-par? There's nothing sub-par about them! I've fought monsters—fought_ lynels— _with these weapons!_

"How surprising, then, that you have not _one_ that is suited to my talents. I wonder if you—hello, what's _this_?" He drew out a heavy stone bow, threaded with light. Its patterning and make seemed very similar to one of the Guardians, or even Vah Medoh, which meant it was so heavy that he might as well have been trying to shoot arrows out of a piece of unfinished iron. "Ugh. You see? This might be the worst of them all. Better for both of us if I just—"

 _Revali don't you dare drop that bow!_

"Agh! Fine!" He dipped, and the Blight's sword passed through the air he had just been occupying. He climbed again, the short sword blazing, and hacked away at the Blight's wings as it tried to maneuver away from him. "But I'm still going to need a _good_ bow to take care of this. Where's mine?"

 _Yours?_

"Yes. The Great Eagle Bow? Only the finest weapon Hyrule has ever seen? Surely you have some _inkling_ of how important such a weapon would be."

Zelda groaned. _I don't know. If it's anything like the weapons of the other Champions then it's being kept safe, but I don't know where it is. Can you not fight the Blight without it?_

"Certainly I could, if you don't mind balancing the fate of the battle, the kingdom, and the _entire world_ on inferior craft."

The princess's rising irritation giving way to resignation was a sign that he was right, in his estimation. _I can't tell you where it is, but either of the other Rito with us may be able to. One of them, Kass, is a historian, and the other_ —

Revali did not wait for her explanation. He kicked off the Blight's back, sending it tumbling even as he soared higher on the Gale's updraft, and from the higher vantage point he took in the entire horizon. So focused—heroically focused, if he allowed himself to be honest—on the Blight, he had not taken the time to note who else was present. In the distance was Vah Medoh, and nearly so far in the opposite direction was a blue-feathered man who Revali _instantly_ recognized as being unable to fight. Nearer was a Hylian woman with silver hair, handling a paraglider with some degree of skill, and a white-feathered individual whose bearing made Revali almost sigh with relief.

"Finally," he said, "someone who will be able to recognize talent."

 _What?_

Revali didn't answer. He brought himself around, heading toward the other warrior with all the speed he could muster.

* * *

Teba had never seen anyone fight like this before; he had heard stories of Revali's prowess, yes, but he had lived his entire life assuming that those stories were embellished or even fabricated. Who could possibly believe in the legendary skill of a long-dead man who had died in combat only because he'd been unarmed? Who had rediscovered flight on behalf of his people, only to have the knowledge lost because he never chose a successor? Teba was not given over to believing in stories. Saki did, and she'd passed that down to Tulin against Teba's wishes, but now? Now he understood how someone could say the things that were said about the Rito Champion, so long lost to history.

Revali was a blur in the air, dipping and cutting in directions that would have torn Teba's wings from his shoulders, transitioning seamlessly from climbs to dives, closing distance with a monster the size of a flying Goron as if he had no fear at all. Looking at him was odd, as if he was occupying the same space as Zelda's body, but every time Teba really tried to focus he could only see Revali. Revali, with a blue sword in his hands. Revali, his bow spinning away toward the earth below. Revali, fighting with his talons as if he were fishing. Revali, breaking off from the engagement and heading toward Teba at an eye-searing pace.

The speed at which the Champion was headed for him should have meant that they would collide at speeds that would either seriously injure or kill them both. Every nerve in his body was screaming at him to _move_ , to avoid Revali with the same urgency as he would avoid the Blight that was now adjusting its heading to intercept them.

Except that Revali's eyes were focused, and clear, and locked directly with his.

Teba held his position, beating his wings to hover in place. Counted down the seconds until impact as Revali tore through the sky toward him. _Four... three... two..._

 _One_.

Teba resisted the urge to close his eyes as wind buffeted him in the face. He kept his balance as Revali stopped less than a meter away from him.

And yes, it _was_ Revali, and he realized that up to that point he'd been nursing doubts about it—doubts that were here dispelled. Revali wasn't _just_ himself, Teba understood that Zelda was channeling the dead Champion in some way, and of course Revali had died a century before, but there was something to the cast of the figure's eyes, the easy posture with which he stayed in the air, which spoke to the truth of every story that had been told about the architect of the Gale.

" _You_ look like you have your priorities straight," Revali said.

Teba could have argued—should have, really. Instead he only grunted, urging the Champion to continue.

"I'm looking for my bow. The Great Eagle Bow. I assume you've heard of it."

The Blight was drawing _very_ close, now, itself seconds away from slamming into both Rito, and the question Revali posed still struck Teba as so odd that he did not immediately react to the danger. "Your bow? Why do you—no. No, I get it." And he _did_ get it. It was stupid, beyond brazen, completely self-centered to a degree that would have been damning in _anyone_ , but it was also completely in keeping with the stories of Revali. "It's being kept in a chest by the elder of the village." He jerked his head in the direction of the Blight. "If you can hold that thing off for a few minutes, I'll retrieve it for you."

"Ha! Thank you, but no, that won't be necessary."

"What?"

"You should descend, by the way. Hard. _Now._ "

A blast of wind nearly threw Teba backward as Revali rocketed into the sky, and Teba did not ask—he tucked his wings and dropped.

The Blight passed over him by inches, the trailing sword in its claws tracing a line of potential destruction through Teba's feathers. Fine tufts were rent free, but no feathers were lost, no flesh rent. He looked up at the beast, hoping to defy it should it turn on him—but it didn't. It screamed in rage, beating its massive wings as it turned its wide radius to follow the retreating Champion.

The retreating Champion who was flying with all speed toward Rito Village.

There was a moment where Teba imagined, not by choice, what would happen if the monster reached the rest of the Rito. The devastation it would bring down on his home. His people. His family.

 _Saki. Tulin!_

He thought of nothing else; he turned his wings, his shoulders roaring in protest as he pulled himself out of the dive, and with all the speed in his body he corrected his arc to pull himself up, up. He couldn't match the Blight's raw speed, he couldn't propel himself with meticulous control of the air like Revali, but in that moment it didn't matter: his family was on the other side of the valley, and the Divine Beast and Paya and Kass all disappeared into the background as his entire existence narrowed, _narrowed_ until it was only the cone in front of him, until all he saw was the Blight's back.

Teba flew.

* * *

"Revali." In the space where souls could touch, Zelda's voice echoed off of everything—not with the weight of her own conviction but with the power of Hylia, bolstering her in every facet.

"Your _Highness._ "

With the goddess's awareness she was able to look at him with a fidelity that would have beggared the imagination of her mortal body, never mind her own senses. If she had been the very architect of his soul, who had assembled the pieces and adjusted them so they would fit together, who had given them motion and written the laws which dictated their interaction, she could not have known him better.

And _still_. Through all of _that_ , despite seeing how his dreams flowed across the surface of his soul and his hopes were a raging storm cloud that gave voice to ambitions that he had not dared to speak, she found herself confounded.

"Why." She found herself sounding angry, stopped, reeled herself in. She was aware of herself too, after all. She could control her mood, at least somewhat, when she was like this. _Do I_ want _to be angry? Yes. Yes I do. But not yet. Let him explain himself first_. When she continued, she sounded level and inquisitive: "Why are we headed for Rito Village?"

"My bow is there," he said, short and curt and as if that was the whole explanation. Oh, yes, perfect! Just what she needed to hear to put her mind at ease, as if there wasn't a Sheikah-crafted Ancient Bow on his back that he could use to hit an arbitrarily small target from a thousand paces!

 _No. No, keep it together. Time passes differently here. Let him explain himself. Talk to him. Reason with him._

She said, "I trust that you are aware that the Blight is in pursuit?"

He chuckled. "So it thinks, anyway."

"It's faster than you are."

"On a straight shot, sure—but it can't take advantage of a tail-wind in the same way I can. Don't worry, Your Highness, I'll make sure your body is in one piece at the end of this."

"It is not the soundness of _my_ body that concerns me." Controlled, controlled... "Given that the two of us are more than capable of defeating the Blight on our own, wouldn't it make sense for us to make our stand here, with the weapons available?"

"I don't think so, no."

There were, of course, limits to her self-control.

" _Revali._ I am sure you have a great deal of meaning invested in your weapon and the time you spent with it, but lives are at stake. _Many_ lives. I am _not willing_ to put innocent people at risk to satisfy your ego."

He flinched. She could see why, written in the color of his soul: she had thought he would have been angry at the accusation, but instead he was wounded by it.

"Do you really think I'm that petty?"

"I don't know you, Revali. Not truly. I only have scattered memories, and there was always distance between us—far more than the other Champions. I wanted to like you, _want_ to like you, but I don't know you except for how you comport yourself when your vanity is on the line."

He made a disgusted sound, then finally turned his full attention to her. In the physical world the body they shared banked, and a twisting of the feathers on Revali's wings redoubled the force of the gale, shooting them forward to slip out of the range of the Blight.

"Fine, then. Since you can't seem to find space in that pretty head to see me like you see the others, I'll make it simple for you: no, I'm not that small! This isn't really about the bow!" He paused, considering. "Though it will _involve_ the bow."

She rubbed at her face with her hands, taking comfort in the familiarity of the action even if it wasn't physically real. "I need to understand, and you are not helping."

"What's not to understand?"

"You haven't told me what your intentions are. Your _specific_ intentions. Your plan of action. Anything! Anything more than that you intend _something._ "

He shook his head. "And it's not enough to just trust me?"

She was very aware, in that moment, of the degree of power that she wielded: if she wanted to, she could take back control of her body in an instant. The channeling of the Champions was a two-part effort, and her denial of the process would take Revali out of the equation instantly. She _could_ do that, she knew. She could take back control and turn in the air with her paraglider, turning on the Blight with the power of the other Champions. Urbosa's Fury and Daruk's Protection would end the battle before it had even properly begun. If she so desired, she might be able to kill the beast with nothing but her own divine power.

She was also aware, however, that this would have been wrong. Not morally or tactically wrong—acting in order to protect the people of the village was morally superior to whatever _this_ was, and it made no sense to involve potential bystanders in a fight with an enemy of this scale—but wrong in the sense that she intuited, on some level, that Revali was meant to be involved, that this was what was supposed to be happening. She hated that thought, the sense that she was being bound to behave in a specific way by the outline of a celestial narrative which she had little ability to influence, but it was there, and she understood that it was true. Her heart beat. The Calamity roared. Link fought in the heart of Hyrule Castle. And she needed Revali.

She _needed_ him. Not just to expand her awareness, not just to awaken more of her power, though that was true too. There was something else he was supposed to do, some hurt that he was supposed to heal that Zelda herself couldn't touch. It had been that way for Mipha and Daruk and Urbosa too, hadn't it? But what? She found herself turning the problem over in her head, considering the different angles by which she could obviate the need to play along with this game. Would she be able to help Teba find some deeper purpose? Could she allay Saki's fears? Could she speak to some deeper need of the Rito, one that she lacked the perspective to perceive in the first place?

In the end, she knew that all her hoping and praying and planning would amount to very little. Prayer had never availed her in the past, after all.

"No," she said. "I can't trust you, Revali. Like I said, I don't know you. All I can do is believe you. But... please. Please, give me something, _anything_ , that will help me to understand."

The smile that pulled at Revali's eyes was wry, almost bitter. "Belief, huh? All right. I guess we all need someone to believe in."

She said nothing in response. She waited.

The Rito warrior turned in the vastness of that space, gesturing with his wing as if to indicate a sky that hung above the infinite darkness. "Do you know that, once, the Rito could _fly_? Not glide as most do now, but fly. _Truly_ fly, despite our size. Most doubt these stories, because the physics don't work out. We're too big, too heavy, and our wings are too small. The air couldn't support us, and we wouldn't be able to push it away in any case. But once, a long time ago..." He paused.

"You flew."

He nodded. "I think we probably didn't have concepts about the physics of flight back then. We didn't have to worry about it; it just worked. _We_ just worked. We were whole souls, closest to—"

"Whole souls?"

He turned his head so that he was looking away from her. She didn't understand why, but felt a flare of embarrassment from him. "Look, never mind. That part doesn't matter. What matters is that the Rito used to fly, until we couldn't anymore. We lost something essential, either in ourselves or in the world. I don't know what, but when it was gone we couldn't get it back." The embarrassment died down, replaced with real vulnerability, and he turned back to her. "I spent my whole life trying to find that something again."

There was an echo, like a taste of memory that passed across her thoughts. She saw snow on the Flight Range, and Revali kneeling in his exhaustion—but no more. "Revali's Gale."

"Ha! Wouldn't that be a pretty answer? And I thought it was, for a long time—maybe we used to control the wind subconsciously, and we just forgot how! But I've been dead for a hundred years, which is _ample_ time for reflection, and I don't think that's it." He gestured again—not toward the sky but toward the village. "Of course, we could still stand to learn to control the Gale. It's a technique worth keeping, _which I expect you to make use of when this is over_ , and I hope that eventually somebody else will figure it out. But it's not why we can't fly."

In the world outside, the Blight lunged for them. Revali twisted and dipped and raked his talons across the beast's throat. Its fangs closed on empty air as he slashed it, then threw an arrow—not even shooting it but flinging it with a turn of his wing—directly into the monster's eye. The Blight shrieked, a sound nearly as loud as Vah Medoh's roar, and peeled off, turning away from them.

"We can't fly because we forgot that we could, Your Highness. That may not sound like much, but it's the only way I can put it."

Zelda tried to consider this, found herself unequal to the task. She was, in the end, Hylian, and the perspective and the history that Revali carried in his breast was far past her understanding. She couldn't decry this without claiming the supremacy of her own knowledge—and even with Hylia's power, the thought made her sick. She wouldn't. But she still had her doubts; she couldn't be rid of those. People's lives were at stake, and she couldn't trust to someone else's expertise on that alone.

"So, the reason we're flying toward the village?"

He looked at her for a long time. He was searching her, for answers or for something else, and she understood that she could not see him as well as she had thought before. More pride, on her part, far worse than his. His eyes searched, and searched, and searched.

After the long time passed he turned away from her, as if resuming active control of her body. She waited for him to speak.

Then he did.

"I'll make you a deal, Your Highness. If things start to go wrong, if your all-powerful senses tell you that people are in danger of really dying, take back control. Actually, you know what? You won't have to. I'll just give it to you at the first sign of real trouble. Then you can put on a real light show. Call down the thunder, cut up the Blight with your glowing swords, then burn it up in your awe-inspiring radiance. You shouldn't have any trouble doing that. Right?"

She nodded. He wasn't looking at her, but that didn't matter.

"Good. Then, until we reach that point... until things go wrong... let me show them. Let me help them remember." He paused, wrestling for words. "Let me give them something to believe."

She said nothing; there was nothing to say. She nodded again.

They soared onward toward the restless village.


	46. Revali

Vah Medoh's roar shook the high spire of Rito Village, but the people who lived there had heard it so often that their hearts no longer jumped in their chests—some flinched, and the young covered their ears at the volume, but mostly the Rito went about their day as if the world was not being turned against them. Who could function under such an assumption? They would live, as they had been living, and it would take something even more terrible to change that resolve.

Something even more terrible sounded, not long after.

The scream of the monster that had waited on Medoh's back was not so loud, not so _thunderous_ , as the Divine Beast's, but something in its roar—some hate, some fury, some deep-seated _hunger_ —sent bolts of panic down the spines of every person in the village, adult or child. As a body they stopped, as a body they looked up at a yawning, angry sky.

Kaneli leapt from his chair and went to the balcony, straining his neck to look up at the conflict unfolding in the heavens. He was old, but his eyes were still very sharp, and so he could make out the shapes that danced in halos of roiling purple and radiant gold. He knew what he was seeing, with the surety of those who were watching events unfold that had faded to memory and story when they had been children, but his waking mind denied him that reality. It was too big. It was too impossible. Those arrows loosed in the heavens, the streak of blue that darted in preposterous directions at preposterous speeds, how Teba—and yes, that _was_ Teba—flitted in and out of the combat, all of these could not signify what he thought they did. His heart was betraying him. His hope had overtaken his senses.

Still.

Still, he knew what was happening when those shapes broke off from the sky and hurtled toward Rito Village. The roar of the monster sounded again, high and clear and angry and hungry, and Kaneli was struck by images of what that shape would do when it struck the home of the Rito. His heart was gripped by ice, and for a moment he could not move.

Then air filled his lungs, which drew breath of their own accord, and he _shrieked,_ high and loud and screeching, the most basic and most reliable alarm that every Rito learned. _Danger_ , he called! _Danger to the village! Danger to everyone!_

Answering shrieks sounded from below and around him, and soon the entire village's voice was raised in one long note. They saw, then. That would have to be enough.

It was time to flee. He would organize everyone. He was too old to keep up with the younger members of the tribe, but he could shepherd the children or the children could shepherd him. It didn't matter. He turned and ran for the door, impressing himself with his own speed. Those old, creaky legs were not so useless as he had feared.

He exited his home and began running down the ramp. Ahead of him, Saki and Tulin were running out of their own home, Saki pulling her son along while the boy looked back and up with wide, terrified eyes.

 _He looks so much like his father did_ , Kaneli thought, then chided himself for reminiscing in the middle of a crisis. That was when Saki saw him, and the look she gave him was equal parts concern and relief.

"Kaneli! There you are. Come, stick with me! Can you make sure that Tulin is all right?"

 _A mother's instinct, trying to make sure that I am provided for while not thinking myself a burden. I am too old for that, Saki, but I love you for trying._ "Yes! Yes, of course, leave it all to me." He offered a wing to Tulin, and Tulin took it, clasping on with the fervor of someone who sought a protector. The boy thought the chief would see to his safety better than even his own mother, then. _I have to live up to that expectation, no matter how impossible._

The three ran together. They got less than ten steps before Tulin looked back over his shoulder.

Kaneli could not have guessed what made the boy look back when he did—perhaps the sharper, rawer instincts of youth warning him of the coming danger. Perhaps just better hearing. But whatever made him look back, the result was Tulin's eyes growing wide and a low, trembling moan escaping his throat.

"Look!" the boy croaked.

They shouldn't have; Saki should have kept running, and Kaneli should have picked Tulin up and redoubled his pace. They should have kept going. But that fear in the boy's voice, that deep-seated _knowledge_ that told them that they would not understand what was about to happen unless they turned their heads, took control of them. Both Kaneli and Saki looked. Then all three of them saw.

The blue streak that rocketed at the head of the whirlwind.

The burning red-and-purple shadow that trailed behind it, beating wings of leather.

Saki's voice was disbelieving, almost strangled by shock: "Revali?"

The blue shape flitted effortlessly into Kaneli's home. The red-and-purple collided with the structure a moment after.

The elder's house exploded, raw force and air pressure sending wood and stone hurtling and spinning into the air. The beast screamed again, so close now that it was all Kaneli could do not to cover his head and cower on the walkway. Smoke and fire of a hundred colors erupted from every stem and sliver, and then the blue streak shot into the sky again. The spire shook with the force of a second take-off, and then the monstrous shape was following the Rito warrior into the sky once more.

"Look!" Tulin said again, only now he did not sound so afraid. "That man has the Great Eagle Bow!"

Kaneli could not see; his eyes were not so sharp as the boy's. Still, it was easy to imagine.

It was easy to believe.

* * *

The village looked skyward as the two shapes chased each other across the firmament. The blue Rito turned and ducked and dove as the monster flung beams of blue-and-white light at him, the warrior's graceful bobbing letting him nearly caress each projectile even as he avoided them. Then there was a shift as the warrior pulled arrows from his quiver, turned, drew.

Explosions rocked the sky as three bomb arrows soared with every pull of the string, each volley striking home perfectly. There was no avoidance, there was no missing, and there was suddenly no doubt left as to what was happening.

None of them had ever seen the warrior before, of course. Even Kaneli wasn't that old, to say nothing of everyone else. But they'd all heard the stories of a fighter so sublime that it was only in being deprived of his arms that he was defeated by an emissary of the Calamity itself. That had been the favorite story of the Rito for a hundred years: the Tragedy of the Champions.

So, yes, they knew Revali, and they stared up at his battle, and barely a breath was drawn among them.

The rolling concussive eruptions continued as Revali led the Blight in arcs around the spire. The Blight's own projectiles were carefully lead, and any other warrior in the village would have died at the first shot—but no matter how well-aimed, no matter how precisely predicted, none of the deadly attacks ever struck home. More, they did not strike the eyrie, either—Revali always kept himself aligned so that any blasts sailed harmlessly away from the village, usually up and into the sky.

The beast roared again, flexing its mighty wings, and with the beating of its limbs it summoned a maelstrom, a whirlwind of debris and fire that pulled at the air across the entire village, so that children clung in panic to their parents out of fear of being lifted away. Who could fly in such conditions, with a disaster worse than nature's own bearing down on them?

Revali could.

Vacuum was met with vacuum as Revali's Gale drew on the wind of the Blight's maelstrom, and the Rito warrior wove the currents before diving directly at the beast. The village saw Revali plunge into the whirlwind and emerge, less than a second later, by smashing into the Blight's chest. A glowing blue sword was in his wing, and there were spurts of fire and blood as he carved into its chest. The Blight screamed, its own sword vanishing in a flash of fire as it reached for him, but he was already off and away. His laughter was loud and raucous, even moreso than the beast's fury, and it was this laughter that proved to the people watching him who he must have been.

Again the two traced arcs in the sky, Revali leading the Blight around and away before doubling back on it for another attack run. Dozens of bomb arrows exploded against its chest and its wings and its face, and the beast answered by firing the cannon-bow on its leg indiscriminately in Revali's direction. The shots went wide, the spaces between them filled by the arcs of hissing explosives, and the village shook with the force of the bomb arrows hitting home.

The whirlwinds that battled for supremacy in the air were the framing for the battle; Revali's Gale was smaller, less powerful, but surgical in its precision, and every Rito on the ground could feel it in their guiding feathers as the warrior's skilled manipulation of the air created pathways for his attack and his retreat, as the beast's overwhelming power was brought to nothing by the careful application of precise degrees of force. Revali was fighting perfectly. Revali was _winning_ , against this monster.

The Blight fired a shot and then three bomb arrows struck it directly in the eye. Its screech was cut off by the blast as its masked head was snapped backward, and it went momentarily limp in the air, beginning to fall. Revali dove after it.

The monster recovered, righting itself and stopping its descent directly above the flooring of Revali's Landing.

Revali stopped in front of it, removed by four lengths of the monster's body. He hovered there, observing the Blight, the Gale whirling around him, promising perfect quickness and precision of motion.

Every eye in the village was on him, every ear attuned as he said to the Windblight, Ganon: "Is that really the best you can do? I suppose I shouldn't be as disappointed as I am. Who could really expect a capering construct to stand a chance against a real warrior?"

The Blights did not feel anger; they did not feel fear; they did not feel challenge. They were more like storms than they were like monsters, and trying to parse their reactions was like trying to parse the reactions of a landslide. Anyone who saw them understood this, not from observation but because something about them spoke to the observer on a base, instinctual level: they were too grand, too evil, to be described with the emotions of thinking creatures beloved by the gods. If the Blight felt anything, then the Rito could not put a name to it, much less understand.

What they understood was that the armor of the beast's mask was segmented along its outer edge, and when Revali challenged the Blight those segments broke away, floating into the air. The objects that rose and rotated were like arrowheads—or miniature versions of the Blight's cannon. There were six. And all of them were now pointed at Revali.

The Champion stared at them for a long moment. Then his eyes found the Windblight again. "Is that supposed to be your answer?"

All six weapons fired their tiny lances of blue light.

Revali rocketed into the air. The miniature cannons rotated, tracking him, and as their master pursued the Champion they rose to follow.

* * *

Revali spun, dancing through the many smaller projectiles that now filled the air. He tracked the trajectory of each, eyeing the mobile weapons that launched the attacks and predicting their firing angles just before they discharged.

 _Revali, we can't keep this up!_

"I beg to differ. Really, I'm just getting started!" He had to fight the urge to laugh again.

 _Look at the weapons! They're not bound to their master!_

He looked. She was right, of course. Now each of the six miniature cannons was darting off in various directions, each trained on him, and they were quick enough to track him even when he was moving with all speed, far quicker than the Windblight itself. Still, that didn't seem too much of a problem.

 _Revali, if they find the right firing angle, they will fill the air with projectiles that you won't be able to completely avoid! Every time they fire, they draw closer to an ideal targeting solution!_

"Aren't you just a ray of optimism," he muttered. He dove, and the interlacing lances of glowing death filled the air above him like a web. "I would have been able to dodge all of those, never minding that I _did_ , just now."

 _Yes, but they're drawing closer!_

"You worry too much," he said. He did not even feel the speed at which his head was turning, his eyes taking in the relative position of each weapon several times every second. They were moving according to a pattern, which was probably being dictated by the predilections of the will driving them. The Windblight probably didn't even realize it had an ingrained pattern for these motions. All the more pity for it. If Revali wanted to, he would have been able to destroy all of them before their next volley.

 _I'm sorry, you would be able to_ what?

"I didn't think that where you were supposed to be able to hear it," he said, irritated both at his own carelessness and at her unambiguous nosiness. "Leave the problem in the air to the person who has some experience with it, hmm?" He kept tracking the weapons, now more mindful than ever of their positioning, and though he could feel Zelda nearly burst with the urge to scream at him, to take control and swat these attackers out of the air with celestial power, she restrained herself. Good. It was really much better when people recognized that they were operating outside of their area of expertise.

He threw a look beyond the Blight, beyond the weapons, to the sky. Measured the distance, the speed. Darted his eye away, having done all of this so quickly that Zelda wouldn't be able to register that he had done it.

"All right," he said. "Now's the time."

 _The time for what?_

The weapons fired. He twisted easily between them, contorting his body as if dancing so that they all burned harmlessly through space. Only one came close to him, singeing a single feather on his diaphragm. He inhaled.

" ** _AAAAARRRRGH!_** "

It was the loudest sound he'd ever made in his life, a pain to his own ears. His wings clutched at the single singed feather, he leaned his head back and dropped straight down. Zelda was screaming at him, and he blocked her out as he plummeted.

The Blight howled. If nothing else, the thing could feel triumph enough to signal it. All of its floating weapons drew near to it again; it would not use them for this, just like Revali had predicted. Instead it raised its primary cannon, painting the air beneath Revali with red light. The sounds of its capacitors charging was almost deafening. Light gathered, focusing into a single bright iris.

Then Teba smashed into the Blight's back, plunging his sword between its shoulder blades. It shrieked, its shot going wild as its weapon discharged. All of its miniature, floating weapons spun away from it.

Revali tumbled as he fell. All eyes were on Teba; no one saw as the Champion drew his bow and loosed two volleys.

* * *

Teba plunged his sword into the Blight's back. The beast's weapons spun away from it in the next instant and then promptly exploded, detonating with all the force of bombs going off. Revali fell and Teba hacked at the Blight's shoulders and wings, not feeling or not minding the burning blood that was spewing all over him. The Blight began to fall, and still Teba hacked at it. He could feel nothing but the act. Saki was in the village. Tulin was in the village. This thing wanted to hurt them. He would not let it. _He would not let it_.

Revali's Landing rose to meet them, and Teba kicked off less than a second before impact. The wind grabbed hold of him, lifting him away as if to protect him of its own volition, but he didn't realize that either. His eyes were on the Blight as it smashed into and through the landing. It crashed against the stone of the spire, bellowing in pain, and Teba dove at it again. His sword was in his hand.

The monster was pushing itself up with the first joints of its wings, lifting its head slowly. It saw him. Raised its weapon. Not fast enough.

Weakened by Revali's earlier assault on it, the monster could not hold Teba back, and he danced in and out, the light Rito blade singing in his hands as he cut at what should have been its joints and major arteries. He was not fighting; he had no intention of this being a contest. Every blow was a killing blow, every stroke meant to bleed the thing out, and that it kept fighting was not due to a lack of trying on Teba's part.

Its sword came up, and he tried to parry it.

The force was colossal, tens of times what he expected, and he felt his shoulders scream under the impact as he was sent hurtling backward. He skipped off of the rock of the spire, righting himself in the air, and by the time he had recovered enough to see straight the Blight had risen, kicking off the stone, hurtling at him.

He climbed furiously and its reaching claws sliced through the air that he had occupied only moments ago. Its teeth snapped up at him. He did not look down at it. He needed space. He had to lead it, force it to ground. He couldn't beat it in the air. He looked up.

The hole in Revali's Landing beckoned to him. He closed his eyes, praying to gods who had never answered him before, and beat his wings with all the force in his body.

It was beneath him. He knew that. He could feel the currents in his feathers, knew its proximity more intimately than if he had been looking at it. It was wounded, its flying was sloppy, but it was still faster than he was. Still stronger. He couldn't have imagined that this was possible, could he? Just before he'd arrived he'd seen this thing shoot Revali out of the sky.

Revali. What was he, compared to that? What did he have that made him believe he could be a match for this monster?

" _Dad!_ "

 _Tulin._

"Dad, _fly!_ "

Who could deny such a call? He flew.

Teba shot up through the hole in Revali's Landing, spinning and relaxing his wings to land solidly on the platform.

The wood shivered and shook as the monster slammed into its underside, the loss of fine motor control making the beast's flight imprecise, even clumsy. The long claws at the ends of its wings reached up through the hole, digging deep furrows in the polished surface as it hauled itself up and through. Teba had not really had a good look at the beast up until now, but he almost had to admire its hideousness: its face was hidden behind an enormous stone plate, save for its gaping mouth full of teeth the size of short swords, and the weapons it held in its legs were still clenched tightly in spite of the beating that it had taken. It was a thing of almost singular will and power.

He held his sword up, turning so that he led with his right side, presenting as narrow a profile as possible to his enemy.

"Come on, then!" he shouted at the beast. "Do you think you can get past me? You'll choke on this blade!"

It considered him for a long moment, moving with its wings as if the wings were legs. He understood, then, that facing it on the ground was no different from facing it in the air. He was going to die.

 _Then I will die for my family. It's all I've wanted._

Something in that thought, however true, made him sad.

The beast bellowed the call of a predator. The landing shook. The entire spire shook. Vah Medoh screamed from above, as if in answer to it. Yes. Now it would end.

Beneath that cacophony there was a hiss that traced a lazy arc through the air.

The Blight's roar was cut short as a bomb arrow exploded in its face.

It howled, staggering back again, nearly losing its footing, but it did not fall. Teba dared to look away from it, to trace the arc of the arrow.

And above him, high above him, a Rito held a Swallow's Bow, her pink plumage trembling with the effort of drawing a weapon she had not touched since she was a girl.

" _Saki?_ "

"Rito!" Kaneli's voice, echoing across everything.

Then Teba really saw: Saki had fired the first, but every man and woman in the village was gathered, bows in every wing. Nekk, and Verla, and Gesane, and Harth, and Saki, and Amali—he stopped trying to count. They stood on every ridge, on the sides of houses, on rooftops, and every eye was focused on the monster who had come to their homes. Saki was nocking another bomb arrow, and everyone else had drawn their lines taut.

Kaneli's voice echoed again: " _Attack!_ "

The sky trembled with their fury.

* * *

The sound of bomb arrows striking the Windblight Ganon was a low rolling thunder that went on and on, never ceasing. The first impacts made the beast stagger; the ones that followed, a hail of fire and force, would have sent it into retreat.

Would have.

The beast staggered away, holding its wings over its head and back like a shield, and at its first step a more conventional arrow punched into the joint of its shoulder—it could not know, of course, that it was Teba who fired upon it then. Its wing gave out, and it fell with a scream that was drowned out as still more bomb arrows rained on it. Arrows were going wide, now, the heat and force of the explosions both making the Blight impossible to see and prematurely detonating some of the projectiles, but this was no relief; every eruption, near or far, still reached the monster, digging fingers of invisible force under its flesh, shaking the Malice, clawing at its very bones.

The heat and the eruptions sucked the air from beneath the eyrie and sent a roiling updraft shooting into the sky, twisting light into a hazy mirage that was almost impossible to see through.

They were a village, and they protected themselves, but they were not an organized military force and they could not order themselves like one. That should not have mattered, but it meant that there was a gap, at one point, when too many people were readying their bomb arrows simultaneously, when there was a lull in the beating that the beast took. It shouldn't have mattered; by all rights, the monster should have been grounded, and dead, and more, and a moment's chance should have been equivalent to nothing at all.

But in that gap the beast leapt into the air, carried high on the updraft, and it screamed in pain and fury and triumph and brought its terrible weapon around, red light shining.

No, it would be inappropriate to say that the Blights did not feel at all, or that they experienced no emotion that the average mind in Hyrule could not grasp. There was evidence to the contrary before the entire village: the Windblight traced the arc of the first bomb arrow that had struck it, and there leveled its weapon. The capacitor in its arm sang as red light shone down on a pink-plumaged mother who shielded her eyes from the sudden radiance, unaware of death staring at her so openly.

Teba did not cry out as the wind carried him up.

The warrior slammed into the monster, driving his sword into the joint of its knee. It did not howl—it _squealed_. It bit. It clawed. Feathers and blood and stone and Malice went out in a spray, and Teba was silent as he threw one wing out. The updraft pulled at him, and with that leverage he forced his blade to the side, and up, and there was a sound like a branch ripping free of its bough, a soft wet tearing _sob_.

The Blight flung Teba away, and the warrior spun skyward while Ganon's severed leg, light still shining from it, plummeted toward the landing. Malice spewed from it when it struck the flooring with a thud.

The Blight howled, looked up at Teba climbing above it. It saw as the wounded archer stared back down at it, eyes narrowed in something like triumph. It did _not_ see the other Rito catching the updraft, too.

Plain arrows struck it in the torso, in the wings, in the throat. Miniscule, meaningless things, but every blow was a spurt of Malice, a gradual weakening. It did not flinch. It tried to attack.

But the Rito were a whirling wall, the body of a gale written in feathers and talons and arrows, and as it swung its sword its back was decorated with wooden shafts. Many punched clean through its wings, leaving miniscule holes—holes that connected. Touched. Grew.

The Blight howled and plummeted and Kass swept by, not to attack but seeking his daughters, and when Ganon struck Revali's Landing the bard landed next to Kaneli and shielded his children, _all_ the village's children, with his body—no warrior, he, but his parental instinct was irresistible.

No one came near to the Blight, now. From above it rained arrows, both plain and explosive, and the impacts shook Revali's Landing. The beast tried to crawl, now, and was pummeled into motionlessness by the fury of a village, of a nation, and all its darkness could not hold back that assault. The landing cracked, the wood smoking and heaving as its support structures were slowly shaken apart. The Blight reached out, seeking with a tendril of darkness—and this, too, was struck by bomb arrows, and the monster was obscured by the light of the explosions.

Perched just out of sight on one of the walls of the spire, Revali watched. Zelda watched with him, a silent observer, but he was not showing her, in truth; he was seeing for himself.

"Do you see them?" he asked her, and his voice was quiet and reverent but controlled, even. Not unmoved, but certainly not... emotional.

 _I do,_ she answered him.

He closed his eyes; some smoke was irritating them. It was not the sight before him that he could not bear to take in, that filled his heart until it was too full to stay in his chest; it could never be that. He could hear, though, as the Rito shouted out commands and instructions and warnings to one another, as they ran to get fresh arrows for the self-assigned warriors, as each of them, in their courage, fought to protect their home. Fought and won.

"Aren't they beautiful?"

A crack, louder than all the rest. Revali opened his eyes. His landing broke, flaming detritus falling down the face of the spire. The Blight was falling too, clawing at the air with tattered wings, engulfed in fire, trailing smoke and Malice. It wouldn't be enough; no physical force would be sufficient to kill the Blight, now. But for one moment—just the space between Zelda's heartbeats—he let himself pretend that it was. That his people had killed the beast.

"End this for them," he said. "Show them that the gods actually care."

He ceded control back, sinking into that shadowy space they shared.

Enormous golden wings erupted from Zelda's back, greater than the Blight's, as richly feathered as a Rito's, and she launched herself after the falling monster. The golden power was in her hand.

* * *

Zelda, Paya, Teba, and Kass looked back in time to watch the Divine Beast assuming its rightful place.

Vah Medoh's shadow dwarfed the spire that housed the village, and its bulk seemed too enormous even to _move_ , much less fly, as it alighted with delicate precision at the top of the spire. With its wings spread it looked like an ancient drawing of a monarch of all birds, and it was with that same regal air that its targeting systems zeroed in on the final goal. Red light illuminated the side of Hyrule Castle, so bright and so insistent that the Malice there recoiled before reasserting itself.

Zelda breathed a sigh and realized she'd been holding her breath.

"Relieved?" Teba's question could have been amused, save for the strain in his voice. He had hurt his diaphragm in the battle with the Blight, as well as his wing; every injury that Revali had pretended to, Teba had actually shouldered.

"I suppose I am," Zelda said. She didn't look away from Vah Medoh, for another moment. "Is that silly?"

"Nothing silly about hoping that the last piece of your plan comes together, I would say." She finally turned back at Kass's words, then had to fight down her amazement at how _collected_ he seemed. For all the world, one would think that he had not been so near to an apocalypse less than an hour ago; he had the air of someone who had been reading about events in a book or listening to them in a song. He must have seen her bewilderment, because his eyes turned up in a smile. "We all have moments like that. It's when we're closest to our goals that we're also closest to catastrophe, after all."

"Speak for yourself," Teba said. Kass laughed, and Teba winced as he fought down the urge to react. His right wing was in a sling, and his diaphragm was carefully bandaged; Zelda could see the bare, raw skin where a number of his feathers had been burned away in combat with the Blight.

For the third time, she offered: "It would take me only a moment to mend your wounds, Teba." Then she added: "I promise it would be no trouble, and it wouldn't tax me in any way to do so."

Teba blinked at her, eyes wide. "You really _do_ assume the best of everyone around you, huh."

"Pardon?" She _thought_ she heard a titter from behind her, but when she looked over her shoulder Paya was absolutely stone-faced. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Teba shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Thank you, but I don't want these healed."

"It looks... painful."

Kass stepped in beside his friend, almost-but-not-quite nudging the injured man, who almost-but-not-quite leaned to avoid him. "Oh, it _is_ painful, have no doubt about that, but Teba has always been the sort of man to mistake suffering for valor. Isn't that right?"

Teba scowled at Kass, then shook his head again before returning his attention to Zelda. "It's not about it hurting or not hurting. I... need this, right now."

Paya said, "You need the limitations that your injuries place on you."

The white-feathered man nodded, plainly relieved. "Yes. I will spend time with my wife and son. Tulin will be sad that I cannot take him to the Flight Range, but—"

"'Sad?'" Kass scoffed out loud, earning him a look so dirty, so searing, that he cackled in answer to it. "Yes, friends, Teba _does_ need the free time with his family, if he doesn't anticipate the hero's welcome that will be waiting for him, first from the village and then from the boy who already worships him. Pity this poor soul! He, who fears the attentions of others more than death itself, must labor under the adoration of his peers and his loved ones! Think of him in the days to come, as his son hounds him for stories of the bravery he showed when he faced down death with a sword and sheer deter—"

Teba shoved Kass with his good wing, and the bard laughed, dancing away to regain his balance as the warrior fumed.

Then Teba sighed. "He's not as wrong as I want him to be. I'll be getting a lot of credit for what you did."

Zelda had known this was coming; she had hoped that she would have words prepared, by now. She found herself disappointed, then decided that she might as well push ahead anyway.

"For what it's worth," she said, choosing her words carefully after covering for Revali for the last hour, "I think that Revali would want you to be the one who's acknowledged, rather than him. He wounded the beast and could have beaten it in a fight... but, foolhardy though it might have been, he lured it toward the village so that the Rito could fight for themselves."

 _There. That is the truth, at least._

The wind was blowing around them, pulling lightly at the cloak on her shoulders. Teba and Kass and probably Paya were staring at her, now, as if really considering what they'd heard.

Teba said, "If Revali weren't dead I would beat him senseless, broken wing or no."

Kass looked thoughtful, still smiling as he spoke: "I would help. Still. It's quite the thought, isn't it? That you channeled the spirit of an almost invincible hero, armed him with power greater than he had in life, gave him the opportunity for perfect and absolute glory... and he consigned himself to ignominy instead. Making himself the fool, a mere foil to Teba, who led the Rito to victory on their own terms."

Zelda realized that the color had risen in her own face; the shame was proof enough of culpability, she thought. She bowed low at her waist, hands clasped in front of her. "I cannot possibly express my sorrow at having been party to that endangerment. I know that I cannot make amends for what happened, but I hope that—"

"Enough," Teba said, and his weariness was so obvious that Zelda felt another rush of shame.

"Come now, Teba, can't you see that the girl is distraught? Here, Zelda, stand up, no more of this bowing." Kass's wing gently tapped her shoulder, and she straightened. "There, much better. Still, I know your type! Not so far removed from Teba, are you? It's not enough to be contrite or to work to fix things—you want _us_ to feel better, and for Hylian royals, in every history I've ever learned, that usually means you assume you need to shoulder some punishment. So."

Kass's plumage really was beautiful. He lifted one wing in front of her face, and she was so struck by the colors that she didn't notice as he bent one stiff feather against another—and then flicked her nose.

" _Ow!_ " She recoiled, stars dancing in her eyes as she instinctively covered her face with her hands.

Kass laughed again. "Judgment had been passed and carried out." He turned to Teba. "Would you agree she had paid her debt to society?"

"Mm." It was clear the warrior was trying not to join in Kass's amusement.

 _Well,_ thought Zelda, _at least Paya didn't attack Kass over this._ She did not turn around; if Paya had been laughing, too, then she was fairly certain that she would have sunk into the earth and disappeared.

"Where will you go now?" Kass's question suggested its own answer, his eyes darting to her ultimate destination.

"I need to make my final preparations," she said. "There are strategies to be made and power to be collated. Once that is finished... I... suppose we will go to the end."

Teba stepped forward, then, stopping in front of her. He had a raptor's eyes, to be sure, but something in his expression was warm. "Zelda. When you are finished, and the Calamity is dead... I hope that you will come back. You're leaving in a hurry, but we'll want to celebrate you. Saki will want to cook for you, if nothing else."

Something in that promise pierced the firmament of Zelda's heart. She didn't show that, though. She was confident in her voice and her expression when she said to him: "Treat her well."

Teba nodded solemnly, bowing to the princess.

Zelda and Paya bowed in return, then walked across the long bridge away from the village. They did not look back, so they did not see how long Teba and Kass stood watching them go.

Vah Medoh perched above the valley. Below it, the Rito rose into the air all around the spire, filling the heavens.


	47. Preparations

"I don't know where you came up with this _theory_ —"

"Dr. Purah, I _assure_ you, if you've had the sort of progress with your research that I assume you have, then there's—"

" _Oh_ no, you're not placing the impetus for this... this _scheme_ on me. I'm telling you that the physics don't _work_. Guardians communicate through flashes of light, and breaking line of sight makes them incapable of either receiving or sending those signals! You showed me the mechanism they use for it, even if I'm the one who identified it. If you think that you can just cook up an alternative solution to a communication problem that was reasonably solved ten thousand years before you were ever _born_..."

Zelda took a long, steady breath that nearly came out as a hiss. "Doctor. Again I _assure_ you, this is not just theory. I put it into practice when reaching the shrine that was outside of the Yiga Clan Hideout."

"You transmitted _very specific_ , very _narrow_ instructions to _one_ receiver, and you had to use the heavens-granted powers of the goddess Hylia to do it! Unless you've actually tried to," and that was when Paya unknowingly found the same solution as her grandmother, completely tuning out the two women arguing in the center of the room.

Paya could not pretend to understand anything that either of them was talking about; she understood, in principle, that they were discussing the Guardians and the underlying technology that informed how the machines communicated with one another, but anything more concrete than that was so far above her head it might as well have been in a different language.

The conversation had started plainly enough: Zelda had brought them to the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab with the hopes of coordinating her understanding with Paya's aunt, which would hopefully afford them some sort of advantage over Ganon in the battle to come. On walking in, Zelda's enthusiasm had been infectious, and both she and Purah had tried to get out the new discoveries that each of them had made in their time apart. They'd spread out diagrams on the table, and Zelda had laid out the Sheikah Slate to illustrate her points with references she'd made through photographs and topographical notations on the map while Purah stood on a chair to get a better vantage point. They'd both been happy about discussing their respective ideas, but it was when these ideas started to trend toward one another that there had been friction. What friction, of course, Paya could not guess, but even Symin seemed affected by it; though he'd stood in the third space around the table to start with, staring with owlish intensity and interjecting where he thought his insight would prove valuable, he'd slowly backed off and taken on the role of observer as the two women argued and Purah jumped on top of the table to tower over the younger woman.

Paya could not help empathizing, which made her reflect that, no matter how removed Symin seemed, she was more removed still; this was one of the things that she could not share with Zelda. But, based on the tone her aunt had taken on, maybe that wasn't so bad.

When there was a momentary lull where Purah and Zelda stared each other down with wide, intense eyes, Paya cleared her throat. "Pardon me," she said. "I'm going to step outside for some fresh air."

Purah and Zelda did not look at her; if anything, their staring grew even more intense and confrontational. The much older (and much younger) woman waved her hand at her niece. "Of course. Zelda will be _right along behind you_."

That made Zelda actually _scowl_ , her eyebrows drawn low and her mouth pursed as if holding back a retort. Still, she did raise her face to look over at Paya, her expression apologetic. "I'm sorry, Paya. As much as I hate to countermand such an auspicious researcher, I have a feeling this might take a while longer. I'll join you when I can."

"Hate to countermand, you say—"

Paya bowed deep, though no one saw it, then turned and left the laboratory, shutting the door behind her.

The heavy wood frame settling into place sealed the noise of the argument behind her.

The wind was blowing up from the village, carrying the smell of dye and livestock and wood smoke. The wood was different from the trees that grew around Kakariko, and the smell was different, too, but something in it still made her nostalgic. She walked away from the laboratory, down the path, and stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking the village. There was so much life there, and from this distance it seemed so tranquil. Perhaps, if she tried, she might be able to feel that tranquility even up close.

Paya closed her eyes.

She breathed in. _One_.

She breathed out. _Two_.

She breathed in. _One._

She breathed out. _Two._

She counted her breaths, one and two, all of her focus on the act of breathing, on the controlled expansion and contraction of her diaphragm. All the world retreated to just that act, to just herself, and her thoughts fell away.

There was no tension; there was nowhere for tension to find its seat. She was only the breaths she took. _One. Two. One. Two._

Slowly, slowly she let her awareness extend beyond her breathing; she felt the air in her nostrils, her windpipe, tasted the air on her tongue. Her hands touched gently in repose in front of her—she had learned this pose from her grandmother, though it was supposed to be done seated, rather than standing.

She let that thought come and go of its own accord. _One. Two. One. Two._

The world moved around her, and she was in the world, and her heartbeat slowed with her breathing. There was nothing in the world that would upset the world; the world would continue on, and she was part of that. _One. Two._

The door opened behind her; she knew, instantly, that it was Symin. The sound of Zelda and Purah's argument was too removed by distance to be at the door, then fell to silence again when the door was shut. She thought, very briefly, of letting go of her meditation, out of reverence for the elder Sheikah—but no, that wasn't right, either. She needed this, and it was an imposition to interrupt it just because Symin was stepping outside. She would not burden him with her own skittishness.

She breathed.

Symin's footsteps were quiet in a way that suggested he had been trained when he was young and then gotten lax as he aged, which was typical for many Sheikah men who didn't work as guards. He drew up behind her but stood at a respectful distance—and then, after four seconds, turned and walked further down the path, toward the orchard. Perhaps he did not want to disturb her; she felt momentarily guilty for seeming stand-offish, and then that feeling slipped away. She let it go.

She realized that, for the first time in her living memory, she was alone with a man she didn't really know and she did not feel nervous.

 _That is a good stopping point._

She breathed out a cleansing sigh. Opened her eyes.

* * *

Impa's hands were steadier than many people a fifth her age. The cup of tea in her hand was placid as she held it in front of her face, breathing in the smell of the drink before sipping.

Paya exhaled at the same moment her grandmother did; that exhalation was the strongest expression of pleasure that Impa allowed herself, and the tension in Paya's back released.

"It is prepared perfectly," the elder of the Sheikah said.

"Thank you, Grandmother," Paya said, inclining her head. Now that her grandmother had begun drinking, she poured herself a cup. The heat of the tea spread through her hands.

Rain fell outside, beating a comfortable pattern against the walls and roof of the elder's manse. Paya closed her eyes, breathing in the steam from her tea and reflecting on how familiar this felt.

"Paya."

She snapped out of her reverie. "Yes, Grandmother?"

The elder's expression was impossible to read; according to Aunt Purah, she'd been impossible to read even in her youth. It created an effect where it was almost impossible to guess what topic she would try to broach, and Paya felt the faintest flutter of anxiety at what might be coming. "Tell me what you are thinking about, child."

"Thinking about?" It was rude to answer a question that way, but she couldn't help it.

Impa nodded. "You are so deep in thought that you should be wearing a harness. We have not spoken privately in months, but you plainly have a great deal on your mind. Share with me."

Paya nodded, setting her cup aside. Her first instinct was to prevaricate, but that had never availed anyone when speaking to her grandmother, and in spite of the vastness of the elder's authority she had always tried to make sure that Paya could confide in her. To fear her, to be shy toward her, would be to dishonor the boundless love that she had shown Paya for her entire life.

"I was thinking of the last time we had tea together. That was before Zelda came to the village—and I was wondering how much I have changed, since then." It was a silly thing to suggest. Even for someone as young as she was, months were not a very long time; to her grandmother, it must have seemed very brief indeed.

Still, Impa once more shamed the preconception by looking at her granddaughter very seriously, setting her tea aside to place her wizened hands on her knees. "You have traveled with the divine princess and you are not sure how you should relate to her."

It was lucky that Paya was not drinking her tea; she would have spilled it, and scalded herself, and possibly used that as an excuse to flee. Instead she tried not to react and found herself biting on the insides of her cheeks. She marshaled herself, calling upon all of her focus, all of her discipline, to levelly get out the words: "That is very true."

"The princess is resting now," the elder continued, a statement that invited confirmation.

"She is. She wished to spend a night in an inn before continuing on her journey tomorrow. She wishes to use her power to reach for all of the remaining shrines across Hyrule simultaneously."

Impa raised her eyebrows, nodding appreciatively. "That had not occurred to me, though I can see why she would think it possible. I am sure that she will succeed, once she begins. Will that be the last step she takes before going to the Hero's aid?"

"I... believe so." Talking about Zelda with her grandmother was already hard; talking about matters where the princess was unsure was much more difficult. "Her memory has not returned to her. She is worried that she hasn't regained full control of the sealing power of the royal family, though she has exhausted the places she thought important enough to record a century ago."

Impa did not respond; instead she turned her head, the charms on her hat swinging gently, and looked across the room. Paya followed her grandmother's glance.

Many times had she seen the painting that hung on the wall, been taken aback by the hyper-realism in its depiction of utter ruin. What she saw there was the Blatchery Plain as it had been a hundred years ago, on the day that Zelda fell in battle: instead of green grass there was only evil smoke and earth that had the quality of crumbling ash. Mountains burned in the distance, and pools of Malice had congealed, dried up by some unseen force, and desiccated eyes on twisted stalks stared sightlessly into the void. Whoever had painted the scene had captured not just its reality but the reality of its experience; many times had Paya, in her childhood, had nightmares of the carnage that must have informed that image.

"That," Impa said, "is the one place she could not record in the Sheikah Slate. The things that happened there..." The elder shook her head, as if to clear away the memory. "Tell me. Almost all of Zelda's memories have been about her journey with the Hero, yes?"

"Yes." That was the truth, but it was also nearly a lie; it did not capture the degree to which she knew Link's presence, his shared past with Zelda, had informed their entire journey. Paya thought of lightning in the dark, a hand pried open as she was pulled away from oblivion. "Almost all. Some few have been about her relationships with the other Champions, but all of those that she marked in the Sheikah Slate were about the Hero."

"Then it is there, on the Blatchery Plain, where she will find the last of her memory. That is the place where she fell—the last place that she saw the Hero before he took up his long, lonely vigil against the dark."

The two faced each other again. Impa took up her cup, and Paya took that as a signal to pick up her own. They both drank, and the tea had cooled enough that their sips were longer, more relaxed, and more meditative.

Impa drew her lips away from her cup first. "I wonder more at how Zelda has changed."

Paya took another sip while thinking. Her grandmother would flit back and forth between topics like this to keep the other person on their toes. "As compared to how I have?"

"Yes. A century ago, I would not claim to have been on intimate terms with the princess—our relationship was very formal, and was never bridged by the passion for study she shared with my sister or the common destiny and heavy burden she shared with Link—but I was her attendant for several years. She is not the kind of person that you forget, even with a century intervening against your memory. She has changed a very great deal."

Paya sipped. Drinking tea was an excellent way to extend silences and to gather thoughts. "Could it be because she's been so thoroughly severed from her past?"

"I wonder."

Paya became suddenly aware of her grandmother looking at her, not as a matter of conversational protocol but _really_ looking at her, as analytically as she'd done during Paya's training a decade ago. The weight of those eyes, of that experience, of the century-honed mind and judgment, would have put her on the floor in the days before she'd left the village.

The leader of the Sheikah continued. "Zelda is at the crossroads of many lives, now. She is slowly rediscovering the person that she was; she is learning more about the person that she _is_ ; she is hurtling toward the person that she must be. This would be burden enough for any monarch, but hers is heavier because she is still a child."

"Grandmother!" Later Paya would remember the scolding tone she'd taken in that moment and want to leap headlong into her own grave.

"Do not be so surprised. It is not a failure to be a child; it is simply what one _is_. And what she is. And what you are. And, though it might sound ridiculous, what the Hero is." A scowl weighed down her face. "This world is cruel to its children, Paya. It takes them in its hands and shapes them to tasks that the people who should protect them have never been equal to. That fate befalls Zelda now. It befell Link a century ago. And it is befalling you, too." One wrinkled hand came up, cutting off any response. "No. Do not speak yet. I will tell you the truth, granddaughter, because you need to hear it.

"You have gathered already that the Calamity is the result of apocalypse deferred by generations that could not deal with it in their own time. My generation is guilty of the same. But that does not make you more responsible for the world; it only means that you are the last ones who have a chance. Our failures weigh on you, but that does not change who you are. All of you who are preparing to fight, all of you who _have_ fought—you and the princess and the Zora prince and the Chief of the Gerudo and all the others—are still children. You are still growing. When you stop this end, when you keep the world from breaking, you will continue to grow."

Paya inclined her head.

"But you are not like everyone else, Paya. You are Sheikah. I have tried to prepare you to lead our people, but your first duty is the duty of _all_ Sheikah: service to the goddess." She held up one hand, balling it into a fist. "You must be prepared to serve Zelda by any means necessary, to facilitate both her well-being and her victory. No matter the cost, to you or anyone else. Though I have no right, though I speak as another of your failed ancestors, I charge you with this duty. Though it might stop your own growth; though it might cost you your very life; you are the last and best hope of our people. Keep her safe. Stay with her."

Something shifted in Paya's mind.

None of what her grandmother said was new to her; she was not sure, even, why she was being told these things again. Still. Still, that reminder, no matter how redundant, did stir something. Even if it was just an echo of her own personal oaths, even if she would have done precisely the same without a word spoken, it fanned a spark that was in her chest.

The granddaughter rose to her feet, opening a pouch at her belt and drawing forth her diary. She crossed the room and offered the book to her grandmother with a bow.

The book was taken from her hands. She returned to her spot on the floor, kneeling.

She finished her tea while her grandmother read. Impa's eyes were still sharp, and Paya's handwriting was very neat.

Paya refilled Impa's cup, and then her own. Then again.

Impa's fourth cup had grown cool beside her when she closed the book. Once more her expression was unreadable as she looked at her granddaughter.

"Oh, my girl."

Paya bowed low from her kneeling position, nearly pressing her head to floor. "I submit myself to your judgment."

She could not see Impa blinking hard, could not quite hear it as her grandmother drew herself up straighter, but she knew these things were happening.

Finally the old voice spoke: "Your duty is unchanged."

"By my blood and my blade." Paya rose again, bowed once more. "I would tend to the princess, by your leave."

"Paya."

Her name, spoken so tenderly, was harsher than a slap across the face. She had to blink back tears. _I thought she would be so angry._ "Yes, Grandmother?"

"Zelda will need her rest, and she is well-guarded here. It would do me good to have you sleep under my roof again, if only for one night. I have kept your room prepared."

She hesitated, tried to unpack her grandmother's reasoning, then almost recoiled in shock and shame at how far she dared to go when she was being received so warmly. "Of course. Nothing would make me happier. May I serve you breakfast in the morning?"

"I would be very happy if you did."

"Then I will. Thank you, Grandmother." She raised her eyes from the floor. Saw the storm of emotion in her grandmother's face. Did not understand. "Grandmother?"

"My child," Impa said, slowly and carefully, as if picking her way through a thorn bush. "What Zelda's heart desires is inherently righteous. But... I want you to be prepared. You want to serve as her anchor, but you may not be able to do so this time. The connection between the Goddess, the Calamity, and the Hero is as old as the world, and its gravity is truly terrible."

Now it was Paya's turn to smile, to see the shock written on her grandmother's face. "I have been prepared for this all along."

Another pause. Finally: "Good child."

Paya went up the familiar stairs, feeling sure and tired and light.

* * *

The mountain range had been named for Levias, an ancient spirit said to have served the goddess in days long since lost to history. The guardian of the sky, Levias was said to have watched over the goddess's own realm, protecting her most beloved chosen when the world was full of darkness. Paya had been told, once, that the spires were so named because only those with wings could ever hope to scale the stone.

Zelda (usually) and Paya did not have wings, but when they stood at the base of the tallest peak Zelda knelt on the ground and called upon the power of Revali's Gale. The updraft that blossomed beneath them was so strong that Paya felt herself grow lighter, and she had to fight the urge to clutch at the grass. Zelda turned to her and nodded. The two of them braced their arms, unfurled their paragliders, and were lifted into the air as if by an invisible hand.

They had tested the effective range of Revali's Gale almost immediately after receiving it, and if Paya recalled correctly it should not have been able to carry them even halfway up the face of the rock, but in moments they were cresting the top and angling down and away from the draft. _Zelda must have put her power into it,_ thought the handmaiden as she landed on the grass that grew like a crown on the spire's cap. Zelda landed a moment after, and as she did the sound of the wind faded behind them until the world was silent.

The sun was high as noon approached. Zelda and Paya both put away their paragliders, and then the princess stood looking out to the west, toward the castle, her brow set and her lips compressed into a thin line. Paya followed her gaze, spent several moments watching the cloud of Malice around Hyrule's heart roil and lick at the sky, then turned her attention back to the princess.

"Zelda," she said, and only continued when the oracle nodded. "I would like to help you with this, if I can."

That pulled the amnesiac back to the present moment, and she turned to Paya with a pensive, analytical look. From anyone else, this expression would have been embarrassing, even mortifying, but in Zelda's case it only meant that she was trying to work out a way to grant Paya's request. The intensity of her thoughts seemed to fill the air around her head.

"I don't know that you _can_ help me," Zelda said, "but if you want to share my perspective while I perform my task then it shouldn't be any harder, at least. Would you be satisfied with that—with being a witness, even if there's no guarantee you could render aid?"

"I would," Paya said.

There was no need to close the distance between them, Paya knew; it was only familiarity, habit, that made Zelda think of her power as being an extension of her body. It was that habit and that familiarity that made Zelda cross the distance between them and place her fingers lightly—so lightly, like the touch of a butterfly—on Paya's temples.

"Close your eyes."

She did.

There was a moment where the world fell away, and the only thing she felt was the warmth of Zelda's fingers, the surety of the other woman's presence. She held onto that moment, fiercely, as if she could extend the space between her heartbeats by will alone. Then their thoughts touched and the world exploded into clarity all around her.

The mountain was a living thing—not in the same way as Death Mountain, a quieter sort of life, but still very much alive. So too the land beneath it, the firmament itself a densely packed field of stars. They two stood above a giant thing that breathed and slept, and even sharing in a goddess-given perspective Paya's mind shied away from the fullness of what that could mean. Some things were not for mortals to touch upon.

Zelda was with her, and Zelda was different than she had been when last their minds had touched, or even when she had charged across the dark to pull Paya from Ganon's grasp. In those times Paya had been able to see the conflict in her charge's mind, the way the aspects of her being vied for supremacy, but now there was... not harmony, exactly. Something else, something that made Paya feel very sad even as she exulted in the radiance of the goddess. For it was the goddess's light, more than any other, that now inundated Zelda.

"I know," the goddess-in-Zelda said to her. "I know."

She wanted to go to Zelda, then fought down the urge. She relegated herself to the role of the observer. She did not have to communicate this; Zelda understood as soon as the decision was made, just as Paya understood that the princess's awareness encompassed all of her. She was a witness to a great act, and it might well be that she could not be anything else.

Zelda stood at the top of the great stone, and Paya watched as she unfurled the goddess's awareness like the slow opening of a hand with many thousands of fingers. They were tendrils of starlight, radiating out from Zelda, reaching across the surface of the land. The goddess's power manifested externally, and Paya saw at its heart that Zelda was still there, whole and separate from Hylia, her soul bright and blue and trembling with the effort of holding the power and herself in one place.

Those tendrils of starlight reached across the continent. Distance was nothing; proximity was nothing. With the power Zelda touched dozens of shrines, and across Hyrule they woke from their slumber as though she had placed the Sheikah Slate against their consoles.

A shrine sat in the heart of Hyrule Castle. The goddess's power radiated from it, and even that subtle flexing sent out ripples. Below it, the Calamity turned its eye, its mind aflame with hunger—and howled as the Hero pulled its attention away.

Zelda trembled with the effort of it. Her physical body sank to its knees, blood drained from her face.

"Zelda," Paya said, physically and in that space.

"It is harder than I thought it would be," the blonde woman responded, and the tremor was only there in the voice of her spirit; her body did not speak at all. "I think my reach has exceeded my grasp. I don't know if I—" And she quailed.

Paya did not think. She reached out with her mind, clinging to Zelda, seeking purchase with the woman who had used her body to shield Paya from a Guardian's death throes. Here was not the goddess; here was a woman with courage who would stand against the end of the world and defy it utterly. She felt the tremble in Zelda's spirit, the limit of the princess's strength, and willed her own to join it.

The world faded for Paya. She sank down as Zelda's task swallowed the vitality of both women, a mouth draining a cup of water. Their perspectives blurred until they could not be separated.

The starlight reached deep beneath the shrines, finding the monks who had waited ten thousand years to commune with their goddess once more. Each monk simultaneously knew, simultaneously responded, and offered up the gathered wisdom of millennia upon millennia of meditation. The starlight encircled the manifested Spirit Orbs, whisking them away across the vastness of Hyrule, and with sighs of relief the monks let go of their mortal bodies.

There was no distance; there was no space. The goddess's power grabbed hold of the Spirit Orbs, and as a body they were drawn deep into Zelda's heart. Without thinking, without _needing_ to think, Zelda offered up the Spirit Orbs to the goddess.

 _A sacrifice to herself_ , Paya thought, and Zelda was darkly amused by the aptness of the image.

Then, light.

Vitality exploded from within Zelda—and the first thing she did was return Paya's strength.

The connection snapped.

Paya gasped, opening her eyes to find herself on her back, staring at the sky. She leapt to her feet, looked about her.

Zelda was pushing herself back to her feet, too. There was no light rolling off of her, now, no power of the goddess hanging in the air. There was only the two of them, the wind blowing across the crags, and the light of day spreading its warmth and radiance over the world.

The princess raised her head. Her face was still pale, but the color was returning even as Paya watched. The concern in her eyes was so raw, so _fierce_ , that it was like a physical blow to Paya's chest. Zelda said, "Are you all right?"

Paya did not respond; she crossed the distance to Zelda and helped her princess to stand.

"Oh, that's not necessary. I feel... stronger than I've ever been, actually! I think that I could climb this mountain on my own, with just my hands. Isn't that a funny thought? No equipment at all."

The princess was wobbling on her feet. Helping her stand had been the wrong call. Paya started to lower her to the ground.

"There's no need for that! I'm utterly fine. I think I could take a bokoblin in a bare-handed fight, now."

"I'm sure that you could."

"Yes! I am bursting at the seams with vigor. I am. I am certain I could not have done that without you. It was too much, too soon. The strength of perhaps ten more shrines would have left me able to do it on my own, but."

Paya lowered Zelda to a sitting position, placing a hand against Zelda's back. "You need to lie down. Even if you have new strength, the toll of using the power so extensively will have drained you."

Zelda did as commanded, though her eyes did not seem able to focus on Paya's face and she exhibited very little fine motor control.

"When you latched onto me, I feared for you."

"Why?"

"You started adding your strength to mine, but you didn't realize how much you would have to give. You could have hurt yourself. You could have died. And it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't overreached. How many times?"

Gently Paya laid Zelda's head on the grass, saying nothing.

"How many times have you had to save me from myself? I'm sorry. You're right. The ground is very soft. I will rest. Just for. Moment."

Before the last word was out of her mouth Zelda's eyes fell closed and her breathing took on the shallow, slow rhythm of sleep.

Paya sat watching Zelda breathe, watching for any worrying change in the rhythm or the depth. When she was satisfied, she shifted so that her body cast a shadow over Zelda's face, protecting her skin from the light of day, and she began to meditate.

Far away, a roar sounded from the castle. It was so distant that, had she been conscious, Zelda wouldn't have heard it.

Paya did.

* * *

Zelda did not really wake for the rest of the day. She could be _roused_ —Paya tested and made sure—but wasn't able to communicate clearly and would drift back to sleep as soon as she was allowed. The sun moved through the sky, and day moved to evening, and Paya prepared a meal of preserved fish and good bread. Zelda only woke long enough to have three bites, then returned to sleep. Paya finished the princess's portion.

With the gear she had in her pack, Paya was able to build only a scanty, modest fire. She moved Zelda close to it, as close as she dared, and fed it until she thought it would last through the coldest part of the night. She layered blankets on top of her charge, then took out the thin canvas and small sticks she kept for emergencies and erected a tent around Zelda, just large enough to keep the wind off of the sleeper. Once she was sure that the princess would not suffer from hypothermia, she took her own place on the other side of the fire. The Yiga were dead, and the Divine Beasts were free, and there had been no Bleeding Earth for weeks longer than any time in the past century—in this remote spot, there was nothing to watch for or guard against, save for the cold.

For the first time since they had left the Lost Woods, Paya did not really need to guard Zelda. She spent an hour in contemplation, checked that the princess was warm enough, and then lay down on the other side of the fire. Her eyes fell closed in very little time.

An hour passed. A little more, perhaps.

The Lightscale Trident, the Boulder Breaker, the Scimitar of the Seven and Daybreaker, and the Great Eagle Bow were all in Zelda's pack, which had been placed a little further from the fire. The weapons and symbols of the Champions gleamed in the scant light.

The heat from the fire bent the atmosphere around it. The air shifted, however lightly.

Daruk reached over with his finger and stirred the embers like a Hylian might have done with an iron poker.

"Don't put it out," Revali said.

"I won't! Let me tell you who knows a thing or two about fire: the great Daruk." He stirred for another moment, then leaned forward and blew. The dead man's breath made the gentle orange glow flare to a bright yellow. "Look at it. Gorgeous little thing, isn't it? Shame they couldn't bring more wood up here for it."

The four Champions were seated around the fire, closer than the living people on the spire could be. The ghost fires whorled around them, whispering softly, so low that the wind carried the words to the world of the dead.

"It's been a long time since we last got together like this," Urbosa said.

"More than a century," Mipha agreed. "I have missed this. I have missed all of you. It is so good to be with you again."

"It's good to be back in the company of friends," said Daruk. He restrained his laughter, but his shoulders shook anyway. "I tell you, it's been quite the journey, hasn't it?"

"Some _journey_ ," Revali said, "where we sit waiting and immobile for a hundred years, biding our time until rescued."

"But we _were_ rescued," Mipha said.

"And a hundred years is not so long," Urbosa said, "if you have something to look forward to." Her lips curled up in a smile that showed her teeth, and thunder rolled in the distance.

Daruk waved his hand over the fire. "The real point is that we _are_ together. The kids managed to get all of us out." He jerked his head toward the miniature tent. "Are we ready to do the same for her?"

The fire crackled loudly as the Champions all considered the place where Zelda slept. The battle to come hung in the air around them.

It was Urbosa who broke the silence.

"I will keep my oath."

"And I," Mipha said.

"And I. I hope Ganon's been eating its gravel; it has no idea what's in store for it."

The last Champion scoffed.

"This is all very touching. _Very touching._ " Revali leaned forward, holding his head above the fire so that everyone present could watch him roll his eyes. "But if you're all done stewing in the potential melodrama of spectacular sacrifices which haven't come to pass or the tragedy of our _deeply ignominious_ deaths or repeating oaths that we prove our fealty to _simply by existing_ —because obviously we will all keep ours!—I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this conversation is no longer private."

The fire crackled. The wind grew calm as Revali motioned with his wing.

"Paya," Urbosa said, "we know you aren't sleeping."

Her stomach clenched into a knot at the sound of her name, and she fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut like a child feigning slumber.

"You don't need much rest, huh, kid?"

Light footsteps on the grass, and then a warm hand was on her shoulder—Mipha's hand. "Revali misspoke. You are not intruding; you should be included, too. Would you come sit with us?"

Paya pushed herself up, rolling over to look to the fire and the Champions there gathered. Urbosa and Daruk were sitting across from each other, and Revali was opposite the empty space that Mipha must have been occupying. Urbosa looked at her with the same expression she'd had when Paya had left her alone with Zelda in the desert, and Daruk was grinning. The ground groaned beneath him as he scooted closer to Revali, making space on his other side, and patted the ground. Revali, for his part, rolled his eyes again.

"Oh, I guess you might as well, even if you didn't do very much for _my_ predicament."

"She did _more_ than enough for mine. You should have seen the way she squared up on the Fireblight. I haven't seen anybody with guts like that in a _long_ time."

Urbosa scowled at Revali, and the Rito Champion stared back as the dead Chief spoke. "There is a young Chief who might be dead if not for her interference. And you should well know, _Revali_ , that courage is more than what we accomplish. Or do we all lack courage for—"

Mipha's hand squeezed Paya's shoulder, drawing her attention away from what must have been a well-worn argument. She looked up at the dead princess, and the closeness of their faces made heat rise in Paya's. Mipha's expression was all serene kindness, and that kindness reflected in her voice when she said, "Don't worry about them. Sit between me and Daruk. It will be the most comfortable place."

Paya nodded, rose to her feet. Followed Mipha to the fire, then took her place between the Goron and Zora Champions. She found herself staring into the fire, forced herself to look up and meet everyone's eyes. Their gazes were so heavy. She wouldn't buckle. She couldn't.

"You heard everything." Mipha wasn't asking a question, but it seemed to beg an answer anyway.

"I did, yes."

Daruk chuckled. "Ah, then you caught us all at our most sentimental. Sorry. I guess that's probably a bit heavy."

Urbosa's earrings jangled as she shook her head. "One of the privileges of the dead."

"I'm sorry," Paya said, then stopped herself. She wouldn't apologize. They didn't want that from her. It wouldn't help them for her to be sorry for being awake, especially when they _knew_ she was awake. "It's so striking, listening to all of you. I feel like I'm looking through a portal in time."

"In some ways," Urbosa said, "you are. The only difference now is that we're prepared for the battle to come."

" _More_ prepared, at least." Revali's tone was not so gentle.

"Fine. Granted."

Daruk stirred the embers again. "You were saying, kid?"

Paya swallowed. "Yes. I just meant to say... I-I've grown up hearing so many stories about all of you. And you lived up to them... all of them. All of you lived up to all of them."

Mipha's hand on her shoulder again. The touch should have been a shock, but something in the Zora princess's regard was calming, even strengthening. "You worry you're not worthy of the task."

"Yes."

Mipha's smile was made sadder by the light of the ghost fires. "You worry, still, that you are not worthy of helping her. Of standing by her."

Why wasn't she more nervous? Why was she able to touch on these issues without being floored by her shame? Had sharing her diary loosed some fundamental part of her by so much? She was surrounded by heroes; in every direction she looked she was greeted by the courageous.

"Yes."

"No point worrying," Revali said. "You definitely aren't."

Slowly, every pair of eyes turned toward the Rito champion.

Revali looked at nothing in particular, wings crossed over his chest.

Then he continued, "None of us are. Not even me, and if _I'm_ not, then who could expect to be? You gain nothing, worrying about worthiness."

The tension bled out of the air. Paya noticed that Urbosa's relaxing hands had been clenched into fists a moment before.

"Revali is right," Mipha said. "We cannot worry about being worthy of our task, or of the people we love. We can only fight, and help each other."

"And we _will_ help each other." Urbosa had turned to Paya, but Paya had a feeling that this was more because she now refused to look at Revali. "No matter what it takes. When the time comes, the four of us will be there for Zelda, and Link, and we'll be there for you, too."

Paya breathed in. _One._

Paya breathed out. _Two._

"Why did you ask me to sit with you?" she asked. "Why invite me to a gathering of the Champions?"

Daruk tilted his head, and the other three Champions looked to him. He shrugged, as if setting aside the question. "You really don't think highly of yourself, do you, kid? Well, that's all right. We invited you here because, after everything you've been through, you're one of us. You might not have a Divine Beast or a magic sword, but believe me: you're one of the Champions, now."

Paya looked into the fire, then. She could not meet any of their eyes. Mipha's hand was still on her shoulder, warm and assuring.

The Champions were very quiet, as the night wore on.

When the horizon changed color with the coming of the dawn, only Paya was seated by the fire.


	48. The Hero's Oath

The bokoblins shrieked warnings to one another, charging in a loose group. Two were silver-skinned, four blue. One of the blue was carrying a club made of dragonbone lashed to a thick tree branch; the other five were all carrying Hylian swords. Looted from the castle, in all likelihood. They could not wield them perfectly, but they did not need to; for all their diminutiveness compared to a moblin, the bokoblins were still thickly muscled and could swing hard enough to kill an armored adult with a stick, much less a sword. The force that charged at Zelda and Paya, scrambling over ruined Guardians and howling their contempt and their fury, was the sort that would have sent the pair scrambling even a few weeks ago.

Now the monsters closed the distance. Paya stood in front of Zelda, sword in hand, but her posture was relaxed. The attendant looked over her shoulder at her charge, whose blue-green eyes were focused on the lead bokoblin.

"Cover your ears," the princess said, raising one hand.

Paya did. Zelda snapped her fingers.

The ground shook and the air roared as the world was filled with a terrible light, and the screams of the bokoblins were lost in the din as their weapons went spinning through the air.

Zelda had squeezed her eyes shut out of reflex—opening them again, she saw that the monsters were gone, and only evil-smelling smoke hung in the air. They had been vaporized so that not even their horns or teeth remained.

 _I wish that felt better than it does._

"We should continue," Paya said. "I do not believe there are more ahead of us. If you wish, you can confirm—"

"No. I know to trust you by now. Let's move on—we'll return to the horses after we've found what we came for."

They walked on through the field.

Zelda could have stuck to the road—the bokoblins rarely came near it, and taking the horses would have certainly been much faster—but she opted to walk the path through the ruins of long-broken machines. When she'd stepped off the road and Paya had followed her, she'd thought that she was doing it to dispose of any threats to other travelers. She still liked to think that was true, at least to an extent. But the _real_ truth was beneath her fingertips as she brushed against the moss-encrusted hull of the Guardians, the alloy that was neither stone nor metal but shared qualities of both while being lighter than either. She could feel herself here, in this place.

"Do you remember the last time we were here?" she asked.

Behind her, Paya said, "I do. We dissected one of the Guardians."

"Yes. It has been a very long time. We've come a long way. Now..."

"Now?"

Zelda stopped next to a Guardian whose top segment was askew, as if it were tilting its head like an inquisitive dog. She laid her palm against its eye, which was dark and cool to the touch. Rubbed her thumb against it and found it smooth, flawless, even after a century of weathering.

"Now I am stepping into the past." She paused, choosing her words as she gently drew her fingernails across the red glass. "When we started out this morning, I welcomed the delay but did not think Impa was right. We had been here once before—why would I be able to remember now, if I could not remember then?"

Paya stood with her hands clasped in front of her, the picture of patience, but she wasn't looking at Zelda. Perhaps she was processing that her charge had 'welcomed the delay.' Still, after a moment the Sheikah said, "And now you believe she was correct?"

"I know she was." She tried to arrange her feelings into thoughts, something she could express. "As we draw closer to the place where I fell, I can feel the past closing in around me. Have you ever experienced something, and thought that surely you had been through exactly the same moment before? A small disconnect between yourself and the present, as if you are playing out that moment without cause or reason. I am experiencing that now, only it is not for a single moment." She paused. "I am nearly disassociating. With myself. The past is reaching for me."

When she lifted her hand away from the Guardian's eye, she found it was shaking. She grabbed it with the other, but that one was shaking, too.

 _I have not felt like this for weeks. I am at the end. I can_ feel _the end. Why am I so afraid?_

More than weeks. Months. On Death Mountain she had only panicked at the danger to Hyrule; in the Yiga Hideout she had never feared for herself, only for Paya; above Rito Village she had never felt true fear at all. Was it really so far back as Zora's Domain? Was it earlier still, the last time she had felt this way?

 _Or have I never stopped, and only ignored the feeling up to now?_

"He's waiting for me," she said, the words unbidden, the thought intrusive. "I've made him wait so long, I—"

Paya's hand closed on her shoulder.

The wind blew gently between the Guardians as the light of the sun warmed the grasses and lichens growing in the field.

"We'll go to him together, then," Paya said. "I'll help however I can." She was looking at her feet, but slowly, slowly she raised her eyes.

Zelda nodded.

They walked across the rest of the plains in step. The past pulled at Zelda's thoughts, and the future pulled, too, and Paya's presence held her in the moment. Perhaps any person could have done that. Yunobo might have kept her anchored, or Sidon, or Riju, or Purah, or even Teba—but she was glad it was Paya. She was glad for the familiarity and for the surety.

They exited the forest of dead Guardians and crossed the field toward the ruined Fort Hateno. It had not changed, of course. There was no reason for it to feel different.

But the great and perfect circle of dead space where no grass grew yawned, calling to her. The air above it was still, and she knew that when she crossed into that dead zone that the wind would die, too.

She stopped on its edge, staring into that cold space.

"That's what it is," she said.

"What what is?"

"I died here." Paya's flinched, and Zelda looked to her friend. She still felt removed, but not in a sour, floating way. "I came here to remember my death, I think."

Paya's calm was nearly perfect. "We—you do not have to do this."

With her free hand Zelda reached over, resting her palm on Paya's shoulder. "I do. Will you wait for me, here? If you think I am distressed, then you can feel free to rouse me."

Paya nodded, though it took a visible effort. Then she took a step back, bowed, and knelt on the ground in a meditative pose, hands clasped in front of her.

Zelda stepped into the circle.

Last time, she had been on her horse, removed from her surroundings. Now, with every step, she could feel what happened here. One step, and she heard thunder, the roar of the Master Sword. Two steps and the sound of Guardian weapons firing.

A third and her own voice was ringing in her ears, screaming pain and defiance.

A fourth and Link's arms cradled her.

A fifth and the Calamity's roar shook the earth.

Golden light poured from her eyes, and then her body was awash in it.

She stepped into the center. The memory already had hold of her.

* * *

The thunder of the Guardian's legs upon the plain was drowned out by the ringing of the princess's power, a light that called out with the voice of the divine. Link heard neither; the Master Sword was in his hand, an extension of his arm, an empowerment and bettering of his body.

Any Guardian that drew near to Zelda was annihilated, the Malice driven out of them and their lifeless husks left to drop to the ground around her. She had deferred to his order and stayed before the gate of Fort Hateno. She had wanted to fight with him, but she was too powerful as a last line of defense and the people of Hateno Village would be helpless if even one got past her.

None would.

Impa was near Zelda, sword out, watching for the distant possibility that the Yiga might choose this moment to interfere, but as of yet she'd had no reason to actually swing it.

If he fought properly, there would never be a reason.

The Guardians weren't supposed to be able to _learn_. He'd been told that many times before, by every researcher who thought they'd been talking over his head. That the Guardians had stopped trying to get past Zelda, that they'd turned all their attention to _him_ , must have been the result of a more powerful will driving them. The Calamity's hand at work.

In another time, another life, Link would have been hindered by needing to protect the princess. He would have interposed his body between her and the machines that sought to kill her, and even with perfect technique he would be worn down. His strength was not infinite. He would fall.

But here, Zelda was so strong. She did not need a protector. Not in that moment. So, Link fought without reservations.

A Guardian turned to track him, but there was a delay in its reactions and the Master Sword clove through the space under its head. The top segment went sailing into the air, spewing flames and blue smoke. A group of three hauled themselves over the corpses of their fellows and he was among them, cleaving, and ten legs were pried loose before he thrust once into their underbellies, pulling the sword free in a spray of fire as the Guardians flailed and roared and shone with a terrible light. All three exploded in a chain, and he was already on to the next group.

They came in their tens, in their hundreds. Their weapons fired with digital precision, and he brought his shield up to reflect the killing bolts back into his attackers' watchful eyes. Explosions erupted across the battlefield as shots were reflected or went wide, and plumes of smoke and churned earth only gave him cover as he ran between Guardian after Guardian after Guardian, the Master Sword singing devastation in his hand.

He knew his strength. He knew how he moved through the world. He knew what it demanded of him. He watched as bolts of destructive power tore through the air at him, and his mind and his body moved twenty times faster than the average knight's. His limbs screamed as he tore through the horde, but he did not feel that pain. He did not feel fear, nor excitement, nor pride, nor fulfillment. Just the sword in his hand, the wind on his face, and the sure knowledge that the light in the distance meant that Zelda was safe and so was everyone behind her.

A group of four reared in front of him. There were none beyond those.

All four fired. Not quite simultaneously—there was a beat between each shot.

He brought his shield up and swung with his body, parrying the first projectile and ducking under the second. The third and fourth sailed over his shoulders as he charged. The earth behind him erupted, the force of the wind pushing at his back. The Guardians adjusted their targeting.

The reflected projectile struck the Guardian on the furthest to the left, and the explosion nearly knocked it over backwards even as it knocked the other three off-balance. He leapt at the one least affected, furthest to the right.

There was a high whine as its weapon charged, and then the tip of the Master Sword pierced its eye. The flared hilt caught on the socket, and he pulled the sword up and loose, tearing open the top half of its head. The second Guardian's head turned just in time for him to leap past it, slashing at the connection between the head and body. The head spun out of control as fire spewed from the joint, and the third Guardian was still trying to locate him in the smoke when he drove the point of the Master Sword down into its crown, between the crenellations on its head, then tore up and away. The fourth Guardian was still stunned when he leapt down in front of it, carving a long and hissing gash from its eye all the way down to the ground.

He dashed away. All four guardians exploded, one after another.

He turned in the field, sword up.

The wind blew, and though rain still fell, the Blatchery Plain was quiet. No more Guardians were coming. Behind him, the ringing of Zelda's power faded.

That wasn't all of them. It couldn't be. In all likelihood, many more had been directed toward Akkala Citadel. Once the citadel fell—he could not lie to himself—the remaining Guardians would be on their way. And more might still be coming from Hyrule Castle Town.

But for now, there was silence. He breathed, mindful of how precious that silence might be in the next few hours.

"Link!" Zelda's voice from the gate. He turned, saw her waving to him. "No more are coming! I want to confer, and decide on our next course of action!"

He sheathed the sword and returned to her. He did not run; if he ran, it would betray a lack of confidence. She needed him to be confident; right now, she needed him unshakable. His stride was even and level as he walked toward her.

Impa bowed to Zelda, pressing her fist to her chest and saying some words that he couldn't catch. Zelda nodded, and then Impa was moving, scaling the wall of Hateno Fortress so quickly it was like she simply leapt over it. Zelda watched her attendant leave, kept watching the spot where the last flash of Impa's uniform had been visible.

When he drew near, the princess said, "I sent her to Hateno Village. They probably have had no warning, and should be prepared in case more Guardians should arrive while you and I tend to other matters."

"Ganon." There was nothing else that could rate higher to her.

She turned to him, then, the rain weighing down her hair, her eyes wide and watchful. She nodded. "Yes. You were right before, of course. There is still a battle to be won." Her hands shook, presaging disaster, but with visible effort she stilled them. "I am still able to fight. Are you?"

He inclined his head.

"Good. I... I don't know if I tire the same as other people, anymore. I have thought of your strength as limitless for a very long time, now, but... please tell me if you need rest."

Now his answer was of a different kind: "Can you sense Ganon?"

She sighed, closed her eyes. "I will try."

She did not glow with the power; there was no ringing of a bell; he had no means by which to know that she was using the power at all, much less to judge how she leveraged it. He turned away from her, crossing his arms, and observed the Blatchery Plain.

Nothing moved. There were Guardians whose corpses still twitched, and fires in their guts still blazed a brilliant cerulean even in the rain, but no new attackers revealed themselves. Still; that could change quickly. The Yiga would be drawing near soon, he thought. They would not be so easy to see coming.

She gasped. He drew the sword. Above them, the sky grew still; had the rain ceased to fall?

"It's coming," she said, her voice a strangled whisper.

The last raindrops hit the ground as a bellow from the direction of the castle shook the firmament. He held out his hand, motioning for her to stay behind him as an eruption of Malice and light hurtled from the highest parapet. Even from that distance of kilometers, even from the heart of the kingdom, the Calamity's eyes burned visibly as it screamed toward them.

For a man, Link was swift. Ganon, though, crossed the leagues from Hyrule Castle to Fort Hateno with such speed that the air behind it tore open, leaving a guttural scream in its wake that whirled with fire and death and pain.

He sank into a defensive stance. Behind him, Zelda's power flared to life.

Ganon landed with stunning delicacy. The Hero laid his eyes on it for the first time.

It was not a solid creature—it was nearly a storm, more ephemeral than concrete, like a cloud of whirling smoke with a head like a hideous, misshapen boar's. It curled in on itself, serpentine, and its eyes remained on the Hero and the Princess. It roared, its jaw opening past a hundred and forty degrees, as if to devour the world.

"Something's wrong," Zelda said behind him. He did not look, but something in her tone was confused, and that chilled him. "It's not supposed to meet us here." Confusion shifted to panic. "'Supposed'? What does that mean?"

The Calamity's bellow shook the earth, and the enormity of its evil flowed out into the ground like poison. The sword writhed in Link's hands, as if begging to join the fight, and Ganon's eyes focused on its deep blue brilliance as the jaws snapped shut.

"Link, this might be some kind of trick. I don't think I understand, there's too much information for me to process—I see you wounded—"

The Calamity drew into itself, the head sinking down into the rest of the maelstrom, and the smoke contracted and whirled more fiercely until it was a uniform ball of hissing, burning vapor. Smooth. Almost... solid.

Legs sprouted from the bottom of the cloud, and they were the size of a great tree's boughs. The body of the cloud contracted into a torso larger than a horse, and the arms that sprouted from those broad shoulders were thicker than a Goron's waist. Ganon's head raised from the dark, and the impression of a demonic boar was still there, its golden eyes still burning.

"Its body—is that its body? Is—"

He shifted his weight to his left leg.

Its eyes focused on the princess. It smiled. It _hungered_.

He launched himself.

" _Wait!_ "

It opened wide its palms and twin swords erupted from the shadows; steel rang on steel as the Master Sword roared like thunder.

Ganon moved like nothing Link had ever seen before. Its speed was a match for his own, and it wielded two blades larger than the Hero as if they weighed nothing. He moved between the blows with the rhythm of a dance, smashing his shield into the Calamity's wrist, sending its guard open. Its other hand came down, and he shifted inside of its range, bringing the Master Sword up across its forearm. There was an eruption of Malice and Ganon's wound closed.

They sank into the rhythm. Their swords clashed dozens of times, more, and Link found himself moving faster than he had ever moved in his life, as if his entire purpose was being condensed down into this moment.

The exchange lasted for four seconds.

Ganon staggered and Link plunged the Master Sword into its stomach before tearing it free. He cut at the tendons behind its knees and as it toppled he slashed at the backs of its hands. Its swords fell into the grass and dissipated as the monster's enormous frame fell onto the earth.

It was laughing as he leapt over it, sword held high. He did not ask why; he descended, aiming for its heart.

Far in the distance, all the way from the mountains that bordered the Gerudo Desert, there was a flash of blue.

Link understood. Accepted what was about to happen. Descended. He would kill Ganon anyway.

" ** _NO!_** "

An invisible hand wrapped around his chest, embracing him as if he were a doll. The light before him grew brighter as he was drawn hurtling backward, the Master Sword still in his hand.

Then he was standing in front of Zelda. Ganon's laughter was more terrible than its roar as Link looked back at the princess. She was aglow with the power, it was fire beneath her skin, and tears were streaming down her face.

She threw her arms out, as if warding off a blow.

From four directions—from the Hebra range, and from Death Mountain, and from Gerudo Desert, and from Zora's Domain—came four beams of terrible, erasing light. The mountains that stood between the attackers and their targets burned away to nothing as power meant to wound the Calamity was leveled against the people it should have protected.

All four beams intersected on the divine princess.

Link, in the months that he had spent traveling with Zelda, had heard her in many moods. He'd heard her voice tremble in real fear; he'd heard her despair as the power refused to awaken in her; he'd heard her dread returning to her father; he'd heard her laugh in strained, temporary happiness; he'd held her as she'd wept in the rain.

But now, as the earth around them disintegrated, as the world was swallowed in blue light, as the fire under Zelda's skin blazed brighter than the noontime sun, as she held back the attacks of all four Divine Beasts with celestial power and an incomprehensible will, she _screamed_. Ganon's laughter was drowned out by a throat-splitting wail so agonized that Link felt an echo of that pain in himself and he wanted nothing in that moment except to take that pain and to pull it into himself, anything, _anything_ to _help her_.

And he watched, helpless, as she held back the walls of light. He was, in the end, only a man with a sword, and he understood that he had failed to protect her.

An eternity later, the light dimmed. The stolen weapons of the dead Champions dwindled and were still. Zelda's scream faded. The power, exhausted, faded from her skin.

She opened her eyes. Looked at him. Smiled.

Then her eyes rolled back and she fell.

The Master Sword hit the ground. He caught Zelda. Lowered her. His fingers were at her throat, her wrists, checking her pulse as he held her in his arms. He did not speak. He could not. She breathed. Her heart beat.

"Link."

Her eyes opened and she looked at him.

"Please. Please do not look so afraid."

He lowered her to the ground. Made sure that her neck was aligned.

"Link. Look at me."

Her hand came up, resting against his cheek, and turned his head slowly so that their eyes met.

"The chamber. They'll take me to the chamber."

In the distance, voices:

" _Princess!_ " Robbie. The bard.

" ** _Your Grace!_** " Impa.

He ignored them. They were nowhere. They were nothing. Her eyes were so clear as the dark pulled at her; he had seen people dying before, and that was the look she had in her eyes now.

"You have to hold it back, Link."

Behind him, a churning and a conflagration as Ganon reshaped itself.

"There is a place beneath Hyrule Castle. It escaped from there. You have to drive it back and you have to hold it there."

Her hand slipped and he held it in his.

"Do you understand? Hold it until I come back. Hold it—hold it for as long as it takes."

Her face was wet with tears. Her hands were shaking, or his were.

He nodded. "I will."

She loosed her grip. Closed her eyes.

Gently he laid her hand on her chest. Ganon's laughter became a roar behind him. He reached for the Master Sword.

His fingers closed on the hilt. He rose, turning, as Impa and Robbie's voices behind him disappeared into the background of the universe.

Ganon rose to meet him. Link marched forward to face the Calamity alone.

For the first time since he had drawn it from that quiet grove in a sacred wood, a mighty voice echoed in his thoughts: _You will not be alone, my master._

Thunder as he clove through the Calamity's guard, driving it back inch by inch, as it realized what was happening, as its panic turned to hate and that hate to fury.

He never saw as Zelda's eyes flew open once more. As Robbie and Impa tried to speak to her, to assure her that all would be well, and she saw them not at all. As she reached sightlessly for the Hero's back, though he grew further and further away.

As she failed to speak the words that followed her into darkness:

"I'm sorry."

* * *

Zelda opened her eyes, raising her head. The air was still in that dead space, and the light faded from her skin, from her eyes.

She cast her eyes to the north, and through the hole in the mountain she saw Vah Ruta. A turn of her head and Vah Rudania's hazy figure was visible atop Death Mountain; another turn and there was Vah Medoh; lastly she took in Vah Naboris. They looked to Hyrule Castle, now, but she could imagine what it would be like to have them targeting her. She had, after all, just seen it.

Again she turned, this time with her whole body, and she looked at the place where Link had marched toward Ganon.

There was no one there. Of course there wasn't. No matter how hard she strained, she would not be able to see his back as he walked into a century of pain and warfare. She looked to the castle. He was there. If she strained, she believed she might hear him. If she reached out with the power, she might let him know she was there.

She did not. Out of caution, she did not. Out of shame, too.

"I did this to him," she said.

Paya had risen when she did, had stepped near to her charge. Something in Zelda's words made her flinch. "'This'?"

Zelda nodded. "I fell here. The Calamity used the weapons of the Divine Beasts against us. I was able to shield us with Hylia's strength, but the strain was so great that I could not take it. I died." She swallowed. "And as I lay dying I charged him with holding the Calamity. 'Until I come back,' I said to him. 'For as long as it takes.'"

Silence between them for a long time. Good. The silence matched the numbness in her thoughts.

From directly beside her: "You place too much importance on your command to him."

Zelda turned very, very slowly to look at Paya. The young Sheikah did not quail; if anything, her expression only grew more determined.

"More meaningful by far," Paya continued, "is that he _carried it out_." She paused, but only for half a moment, to give the words space to breathe. "Th- _that_ he did it is what you should focus on. His action followed from your command—but your command, your _hope_ , is not what has held back the Calamity for a century. L-Link is." There was not a line on her face; her expression was smooth, authoritative, almost commanding, and only the pacing of her words betrayed how nervous she was to speak so. "If you regret laying that burden on his shoulders—if you can see how he has fought for Hyrule for a century and feel anything but gratitude, and _awe_ —then you dishonor his sacrifice. His p-p-pain."

Ah, there, truth, like a balm on her thoughts. She breathed in, and even in the dead space left behind where the goddess fell she could catch some sweetness in the air. There _was_ sweetness, too. Nothing that had transpired or _would_ transpire could take away from that.

For a hundred years he had fought. That was so much bigger than her guilt or her failure. She let that guilt go, then, or imagined that she did; if she could pick between guilt and gratitude, then she would have gratitude. Gratitude was strength.

"You are right," she said, and her heart broke a little for the expression of relief that washed over Paya as the tension left the Sheikah's body. "To dwell on that memory is selfishness, and I cannot be selfish. None of this changes what I must do, but—thank you. When I see Link again, I want to do so gladly."

Paya nodded. "I do too. There is nothing that would make me happier."

They worked together to prep their kit; they had expected that Zelda would be drained by the experience of the memory, had prepared for her to need rest, but she did not. Several minutes passed so that they could be sure.

 _Nothing that would make her happier._ Zelda turned the phrase over in her head. It _was_ just a turn of phrase. Illustrative exaggeration. Ambiguous, too, but reading too much into it would be—

No. No, she owed gratitude to many people. Very few could make claim to so much as Paya. So.

So, she asked, gently: "Nothing?" _There._

The color rose in Paya's face in a way that hadn't happened in weeks. She seemed interested in looking everywhere but directly at the person she was talking to, suddenly.

 _I have pushed her, now, but I've given her space. I've given her time. Maybe it's not enough—but I have to check. There's no time left. We're coming to the end._

Finally Paya looked at her again. "May we talk while returning to the horses?"

"Certainly." They started off, then.

They had traveled perhaps a hundred paces in silence, Paya watching the road in front of her feet while Zelda watched Paya, when the bodyguard finally spoke.

"When I was a girl, I was raised on stories of the Hero and the Princess. I think I've told you that, before."

"You have."

Paya nodded, lowering her gaze still more until she was actually staring at her feet as she walked. "I... I loved those stories. Grandmother could talk so vividly about the two of you. You were like the protagonists of any myth, only you were... real. One of you was asleep, waiting to wake up, and the other protected Hyrule from destruction. If I'd ever been brave enough, I could go out and listen to the battle for myself." Her hair waved as she shook her head. "I didn't, of course."

"Imaginably not."

"The other children and I would play games where we would pretend to be the two of you, or monsters, or the people that you would rescue from the monsters. I-I liked the last role best. Playing _as_ you always felt a little like a lie to me, even if the other children just found it empowering. But to be someone outside of you, s-someone who benefited from your strength, who could... could follow you, and... look up to you..."

A hundred paces of silence; Zelda could feel that silence bleeding away as they walked up the road.

"You and Link... both of you... I idolized you, growing up. And then one day the shrine at the top of the village started glowing, and a few days later... there you were. Stepping out of history, as heroic and determined as the stories always said you were." Paya raised her head, finally, and through a visible effort of will looked at Zelda. "You know the rest."

Zelda nodded. She felt removed from herself, or at least removed from the story being told.

"I've spent so long thinking about this while I travel with you. Agonizing over it, I suppose. I had all these... ideas, about what it meant. About how far above myself I was reaching to feel these things. How horrible it was to try to insert myself into your story." She stopped on the road, and Zelda stopped too. "I-I don't think those things anymore."

"Good." She didn't try to hide her relief as she sighed. "We've been through too much together for that."

Another hundred paces. The day was warm, the plains were quiet.

"I told my grandmother last night."

Zelda took perhaps a moment to realize how wide she'd let her eyes grow, then forced herself to relax. "What did she say?"

"I thought she would chastise me... but she didn't. She said to serve you—in whatever way would benefit you most."

 _All right. Good enough, I suppose. Now:_ "And what is it that you want?"

There should have been a pause, Zelda thought; certainly she'd been expecting one. She'd expected a moment to reflect on the feeling of the sun on her skin, how different that was from the rainy battle she had just remembered. She had expected to have time to gather herself, too.

She did not expect Paya to kneel, placing a fist on the ground and lowering her eyes. Zelda stopped, turned to face her friend.

"I want," Paya said, her cadence betraying how carefully she had been rehearsing this in her head, "to serve you. To protect you, where I can. To stand by you, where I cannot. To..." She stopped, swallowed with difficulty. "I want to be by you always. To be your constant companion, for protection and for service and for company."

"Paya..."

"It is _all_ I want for myself. To be by you. I would be so happy, having that. Even if you..." Another pause. "Even if your love for the Hero leaves no room for me, I—"

Zelda put her hands on Paya's shoulders, guiding her to raise her head. Paya did. Zelda leaned down, pressing her lips to Paya's forehead. Held them there.

The princess stood straight, taking her attendant's hand and bidding her to rise.

Paya rose.

Zelda said: "No heart could ever be so full."

They walked together down the long road, back to their horses, and the silence was comforting.

* * *

There were shrines outside of the castle; one shrine had even rested beneath it, and would be by far the quickest, stealthiest way to reach the Calamity. To reach Link.

But Zelda did not want simply the stealthiest way, nor even the quickest. There was power in ideas; there was power in how one approached a problem to be solved. They would approach from the front. _She_ would approach from the front.

So the tower to the southwest of Hyrule Castle was where gathered the strings of blue light, which twisted and coalesced into the two young women who had traveled so long to reach this point. The Sheikah Slate was in Zelda's hands, and she was examining the map even before the teleportation was finished.

Paya strode to the edge of the tower's lookout and gazed long and hard at Hyrule Castle in the distance. Malice boiled there; it had grown no less terrible in the weeks and months leading up to this bright, cool morning. She looked back to her princess.

After a time, Zelda looked up. "How long do you think it will take us to reach the front gate?"

"If we travel in a straight line across the plains and approach from the south, we will reach the ruins of Hyrule Castle Town just before noon. The gate will be only a few minutes beyond that." She watched as Zelda adjusted the straps on her pack, clipped the Sheikah Slate to her hip, and checked the scabbard in which the Ancient Short Sword rested. "Are you ready?"

Zelda smiled thinly. "Not at all. Let's go."

Paya nodded.

They unfurled their paragliders and clamped their forearms into the long-distance bracers that Purah had added onto the frames. Zelda called upon Revali's Gale. They were lifted into the sky—several times higher than the apex of the tower itself.

They glided toward Hyrule Castle.


	49. The Storm

The Malice that surrounded Hyrule Castle had, for the months that Zelda had spied it from a distance, resembled a whorl of purple-and-red smoke. No longer. Now, as she and Paya stood at the gate that stood between the ruins of the town and the castle itself, the Malice was an inferno. Instead of smoke it had the look of flames, as if Hyrule Castle was the kindling that fed a conflagration that licked at the heavens. The targeting lights of the Divine Beasts and the viridian halo of the forest spirits who kept the Calamity's influence contained were no longer threat and barrier; they were only accents, lending the extra light and color necessary to transform the impression of an enormous fire into a visual surety.

Hyrule Castle burned with evil. The war between the Hero and the Calamity raged at its heart, and the flames hissed and danced in tune with the distant clash of steel on steel, steel on stone, steel on flesh. Beneath that din—above it?—the Calamity's laughter shook the earth. The massive gate yawned, and two women stood at its threshold.

"Does it know you're here?" Paya sked.

"I do not believe so. If it did, there would be some sign." She paused, considering that. "Or, more accurately, I believe I would have already been pulled into the fight."

They stood staring up at the castle for a while longer. The change to the Malice had occurred during their approach. The Calamity might not sense her directly—she hoped she was right—but something about her proximity was making the conflict fiercer.

 _There is a terrible gravity, here_.

They were prepared for battle: on Zelda's back rested the weapons of the Champions, and at her hip she wore the Ancient Short Sword forged in Akkala. Her ancient armor had been set aside for her blue tunic and white blouse; there was power in that symbol. Paya's raiment was as it had been when she left Kakariko, save for the addition of a Great Fairy's blessing on her armor, the amber earrings that danced whenever she turned her head, and the radiant glow of Zelda's blessing on her eight-fold blade.

But it would not be enough, Zelda knew. Ganon hated Paya as fiercely as it hated Zelda herself.

"I wish to protect you to the fullness of my abilities," Zelda said to her companion as they turned to face each other. "Will you accept my blessing?"

Paya nodded. There was no shyness, then; they were far past that.

Every blessing was rooted in love; the act of conferring a blessing was an expression of that love. So it had been with the Great Fairies; so it had been since the most ancient times, when the goddess's love was said to have been laid on the Sword that Seals the Darkness.

Zelda drew Paya into an embrace, brushing her right cheek against Paya's. "Whatever happens," Zelda said in the Sheikah's ear, "whoever I am in the next hour, that person will not abandon you. I swear." She brushed her lips against Paya's cheek.

If Hylia's power was the golden sun, then the light that bloomed between the two women was the silver moon, the truest reflection of the light of day. It spread from Paya's cheek, across her face, down her neck, and across her body; its radiance shimmered through the seams of her uniform. In a moment she was engulfed in it; then it sank beneath her skin, infusing her, and was invisible to the eye.

The embrace ended; the two stepped apart. Paya looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers, as if she could still see the light there. Perhaps she could.

Zelda said, "I will go up the hill. Follow at a safe distance. Do not join in the battle until and unless absolutely necessary."

"By your word," Paya said.

Zelda took hold of the thinnest sliver of her power, and with that sliver she connected her mind with Paya's. It would be necessary, if Paya was to judge the situation well enough to interfere or to stay away.

 _If the gods are kind, then the Hero and I will be enough on our own._

But had the gods ever been kind?

She turned up the path. Began to walk. Paya watched her go.

Zelda had walked a hundred meters when the ground heaved beneath her. She threw her arms wide, trying to maintain her balance as the earth danced. She kept her footing, then nearly lost it again when the quake was followed by laughter, then a howl of triumph:

" ** _SHE IS HERE!_** "

* * *

No more caution. No more stealth. Zelda enrobed herself in the fullness of the power and ran with all the strength that the goddess conferred. With her senses she reached out, and with a goddess's awareness she saw.

She saw as Ganon's body exploded, not in death but in _retreat_ , the eruption of hate and force driving the Hero back as the Calamity's true shape, the storm at the heart of the Malice, howled and swirled up the mouth of the chamber that had imprisoned it for ten thousand years and a century more.

Light exploded from between her shoulder blades, unbidden, and the beating of mighty wings lifted her into the air. She could not think; all of her faculties were focused on the approach. What remained was drawn in by that terrible gravity, making her the witness of the battle's end.

She saw as the Hero responded instantly, leaping at the wall of the chamber. A century of warfare had taken that smooth, unscalable surface and filled it with cracks and divots that were more handholds than Link needed. He heaved himself up at absurd angles, nearly flying out of the chamber, keeping pace with the Calamity as it fled from him.

Revali's Gale blossomed to life beneath her and she sailed upward, swooping past the parapets of the castle. Guardians tracked her with their killing eyes—and in the light of her passing the Malice inside of them dissipated, returning to them their original purpose.

She saw the construct that hung above the throne room, above the very Sanctum beneath which the Calamity had been sealed; she recognized the brightly lit tubing, though its light was that of the Malice, purple-and-red instead of blue. She recognized the life-giving energies coursing there. She recognized the same twisting of form that separated the Blights from the Champions, from the Guardians. The storm of the Calamity poured itself into that device, which was the very image of the chamber in which she had floated for a hundred years in the Chamber of Resurrection.

The power was twin suns in her hands, and she was prepared for battle. She could not think, but she could visualize; she would hit the Calamity with everything she had from the first moment, test its strength with the fullness of hers. She folded her wings against her back, and the Sanctum loomed large before her.

She saw as the Hero leapt from the pit where he had waged war for a hundred years, and the Master Sword was in his hands before his feet were on the ground. As the healing chamber in which the Calamity's body had been constructed over the course of a century split, spewing liquid Malice onto the floor. As the true body of the beast, of which the Hero had only been battling mockeries for a hundred years, landed on its feet with an impact that shook the castle. As the Hero held the sword aloft and it sang a high note of defiance. As Ganon swung a blade of pure Malice and the Master Sword met it with a thunderous roar.

Zelda landed outside of the Sanctum, losing no momentum, and ran the last few meters to join in the battle beside her Hero.

And she tried to see. She couldn't.

She couldn't see.

Something was wrong with her eyes.

She saw the Sanctum itself, the ruined throne that sat beneath the shattered symbol of the kingdom's covenant with the old gods, the high arches that had been blown away by some previous unleashing of Ganon's fury, the halo of green light that sang a child's song to keep evil contained, the hole in the floor out of which war had come leaping like a monster from its den.

She saw the Calamity's body. In another time, another life, it would have been a misshapen horror built under duress and unleashed in desperation; not so now. She knew at a glance that it was whole, fully formed. The beast had made for itself an armored body, as if a Guardian had been built in the shape of a man taller than a Gerudo and stronger than a Goron, with a mane of Gerudo-red hair hanging down nearly to its waist. Its armor was so fine, so carefully articulated, that it might be mistaken for skin. The sword it wielded was a burning flamberge, its flared hilt a downturned mockery of the Master Sword's, and the hands that held it were strong and fine and terrible. Only when she saw the Calamity's face was the illusion broken: above the shapely bent nose and up-turned smiling mouth, beneath the jutting stone brow, there were no eyes. From within a hollow opening there burned the conflagration of Malice that was the Calamity's true form.

 _Why can't I see the Hero?_

She saw the fight against apocalypse, the Master Sword flashing in the Hero's hands, his movements too rapid for mortal eyes to follow. But she could not see _Link_ , even as she looked at him. Surely it was the goddess's clarity that denied her the simple reality of her eyes. Surely. Surely, she prayed, and so much of herself was poured into that prayer that the power in her hands went out.

Imagine spending your entire life with one sure understanding of the world. It is the bedrock on which you build your identity. It is the single goal toward which the entirety of your self is focused. You love, you struggle, you learn, and you grow outside of it; but it is the background of your universe, the ancient law that dictates the motion of the stars, the order laid upon you by the heavens. It is not everything, but on it everything is built. Remove it, and everything crumbles. You crumble. You are dust.

Zelda was crumbling.

 _How long?_

The Calamity looked over its shoulder at her, and she saw that she had been wrong: from within the hollow of its head burned two golden eyes, the eyes spawned of its Malice. Its armored mouth spread in a grin that showed off its burning teeth.

"How good of you to join us," the Calamity said, its voice a whisper that stirred the dust of the universe.

The Hero looked to her. There was a gentle light where should have been his eyes, a field of stars where should have been his body.

 _How long has he been dead?_

Only for a moment did he see her. Only for a moment did relief flash across his face, relief that was worse than pain, relief that reached inside of her chest and grabbed hold of her heart and _pulled_. It was relief written on the very face of his soul, for that was all that remained of him. Only for a moment was he distracted.

In that moment the Calamity's hand closed around the blade of the Master Sword. There was an outpouring of Malice that would eclipse every Burning Earth that had ever haunted the land. A metallic groan. A high note sung by a mighty voice, suddenly strangled.

An eruption. Shards of steel raining on the floor. A voice cut off.

The Hero's soul guttered like a flame caught in a gale. He staggered, the broken hilt of the Master Sword in his hand, and she could see through him, through the fading brightness of the unfaltering spirit that had kept fighting long after his body had worn away. He was falling, and still he looked at her, and he was so happy.

She was running. She was reaching out to him. She was screaming for him, screaming his name, but the power overwhelmed her. She fought it down, fought down the very will of the heavens, and she screamed for Link. Then the gold was too bright, the chime too mighty, and it drowned her.

The goddess's voice rang out, speaking a single word.

* * *

Paya staggered and fell, barely catching herself. The quaking was growing worse, as if the earth itself rebelled at the horror taking place on its surface.

The connection between her mind and Zelda's was thin, and so she was spared the worst of whatever it was that her princess was enduring. This only meant, though, that Paya did not experience it from herself; the flash of agony, of soul-shattering horror, was like fire burning inches away from her skin. She was scalded. She had to fight the urge to scream.

She could not know exactly what was happening. Zelda's mind had become the goddess's, and even if she could have Paya would not have shared more fully in that burden of pain; whatever was happening was beyond her. It would surely kill her.

 _I cannot help her if I am dead._

The tears that fell from her eyes were not her own. She shoved herself to her feet, running with all the speed of her body. She was not as fleet as a god, but she chased after one anyway, leaping up the sides of the castle, finding handholds in ancient brick, climbing with all her strength. Her entire being was boiled down to that one task: reach Zelda. Help Zelda. Protect Zelda.

Above her, the goddess's voice rang out in a language older than Hyrule, and Paya looked up in spite of herself.

She saw as the air split in three places around the tower, as storm clouds roared and shifted into portals that connected to distant realms. As the embodiments of ancient powers soared through those magic doorways, undulating with perfect grace, perfect calm, and perfect purpose.

Paya tore her attention away from the vision above her. She climbed up the side of the castle. That was all that mattered. She had to hurry. She couldn't afford to be awed. She paid no mind as the walls of the tower were torn away, as harmonic roars drowned out the howl of the Calamity.

Around the Sanctum, for the first time since the original demon king had walked the land wreathed in darkness, the dragons were going to war.

* * *

Every blow that had killed every Blight, the radiance that had cleansed the Malice from Kohga, and the strength leveraged in protecting the Gerudo guards from the Calamity's wrath—all of these paled in comparison to the power unleashed against Ganon in that moment. The sun dawned as Zelda screamed. The Calamity was sent hurtling across the Sanctum.

It laughed as it flew. Laughed as it crashed into the broken throne. Laughed as the symbol of the covenant was smashed and fell atop it. Laughed as it rose, moving through the rubble as easily as it moved through the empty air.

The divine princess ran to her Hero, to the shining radiance of a night sky bound into the shape of a single man, and caught him as he collapsed. The broken Master Sword's hilt clattered to the ground. There was no song.

"Please, please—" Then light shone from her eyes, golden and terrible, and grief was joined by panic. "No! No, not now! Not—"

Memory swallowed her.

In the shape of a man the Calamity crossed the Sanctum, and its laughter faded to a satisfied rumble. It relished the vulnerability of its prey, though that did not slow its step. It crossed the floor, eyes locked on the catatonic Zelda and the fallen hero she held in her arms, and its sword hissed with the aura of its power.

Then three voices rang out in a language so old that even the Calamity did not know it. The age of that language, the volume of the roar, and the power of the voices made Ganon look up from its quarry just as the walls of the Sanctum exploded outward, torn away by claws the size of horses or blown apart by a howling current of fire and ice and thunder. The Calamity's grin shifted in irritation.

" ** _HYLIA!_** " Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh called out in their ancient tongue, and all of their power was unleashed.

An eruption, a _roar_ , and the Sanctum exploded in fire and lightning and ice, a maelstrom of destruction that scoured the walls and drove the very air from the chamber. Stone melted and froze and exploded and danced with lightning that screamed outward in tornadoes of peeling light that reached toward the sky.

The space around the oracle was untouched, a perfect circle of calm in the heart of catastrophe. From her back the artifacts of the Champions rose, as if hoisted by invisible hands.

Ganon's eyes shone in the maelstrom. Its power exploded outward, the Malice eating at the world around it.

The heart and source of the elements warred with the very incarnation of hate, and in the midst of that inferno that Calamity raised its hands. It felt for its enemies. It roared.

The dragons circled the tower, and they roared in return, and their power redoubled. The storm of fire and ice and lightning became a pillar that exploded upward, tearing off the roof of the Sanctum, sending it hurtling skyward. Red and blue and white and yellow rose into the air, and the green halo of the forest spirits dissipated as the children of the forest scrambled to get out of the way of the guardians' fury. The roar of the dragons was drowned out by the destruction.

And then Ganon struck back.

Massive shapes reached out from the sides of the pillar, formless mounds of burning darkness, each of size with one of the dragons. From that formlessness erupted fingers tipped in claws, and from behind the unfolding hands emerged forearms, and the dragons howled as the Calamity's limbs closed around their bodies.

Malice exploded from between those crushing fingers. The dragons bellowed, turning their power against the reaching darkness to protect themselves.

The arms flexed. Heaved.

The continent shook as the Calamity slammed the dragons into the earth. Their kilometer-long bodies fell in long sections as the power holding them up faded, as the Malice ate at them, and Ganon's roar silenced theirs utterly.

The hands dissipated. Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh were still, their bodies stretched across the entirety of the castle and into the countryside beyond it. There was silence.

Ganon lowered its arms.

"Now," the beast whispered from within its body, "I can tend to—"

The Boulder Breaker crashed into its ribs. There was a moment where its power, its personal gravity, seemed to resist the blow—and then it was sent careening across the ruined hall, directly away from the princess, bouncing off the floor and over the pit in which it had battled the hero, crashing into the far wall with an explosion of stone and dust.

A heavy foot stamped out its place on the flooring, and then the other. The Boulder Breaker's owner was not laughing as he sank into a defensive posture and shouted:

" _Champions!_ "

A blue light coursed along the floor as the Lightscale Trident was brought to bear, and as the holder sank into an orthodox posture her golden eyes glittered.

The wind howled and the Great Eagle Bow spun, balanced on the end of a single feather. For all his nonchalance, he was even more watchful than his fellows.

Daybreaker and the Scimitar of the Seven were sheathed and put away against the belt of their mistress, but only for a moment. She wanted both hands free as she donned the Thunder Helm.

Daruk, Mipha, Revali, and Urbosa all shone with the power of the goddess; by Hylia's grace did the movement of their feet disturb the dust on the ground; by the power of the gods did they wield their weapons with solid hands, however momentarily.

Ganon stepped out from the rubble. Stopped. Stared at the warriors it had killed a century ago.

Daruk grinned, then held out his fist.

" _Attack!_ "

What were dragons—what were gods—to the fury of the vengeful dead?

* * *

"What if… one day…"

That stopped him mid-motion, and the look of concentration slipped from his face. Nothing ever did that. She couldn't look at him as he turned to her. If she looked at him, she would never get the words out.

"You realized that you just weren't meant to be a fighter. Yet the only thing that people ever said was that you were born into a family of the royal guard, and no matter what you thought, you had to become a knight."

He had changed so much in the past weeks. Or maybe she had; his reservation had given way to something else, to an openness of expression and attentiveness that readily betrayed his concern. Had she been blocking that concern—that care—before? She couldn't think of it. She realized she _was_ meeting his eyes, then looked away, at the ground.

"If that was the only thing that you were ever told… I wonder, then… would you have chosen a different path?"

The rain did not stop falling, and the Hero did not move. After long seconds she forced herself to look at him again, to not buckle under the weight of his eyes and his concern. The rain barely seemed to touch him as he sheathed the Master Sword on his back.

He did not answer her; based on his expression, he would not answer her for some minutes. He strode over to the tree, and she made space for him so that he could sit a respectful distance from her while still taking shelter under its scant branches. His eyes never wandered from her face; he was not staring, exactly. It was a look too rooted in empathy to be staring.

"I am all right," she said. She wasn't, but it wasn't really a lie if he knew she was lying. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I hoped to hear."

"I have to think before I can answer," he said.

She was _definitely_ staring at him, then, and not trying to hide it. That was the longest sentence he'd spoken in days. After a few moments he actually broke eye contact—was he being shy or was she just that rude?—to look out across the vastness of Hyrule Field. The rain was too thick, the day too dark, to see the castle, but he still stared in that direction anyway.

They stayed like that, quiet in the rain, for a long time. When the downpour had first started, they had taken shelter like this for what they thought would only be a few minutes; when the rain persisted, Link had begun to fill the time by walking through his normal exercises. That was what had started her thoughts down those paths: seeing him, the ease with which he transitioned through the motions, the intensity of his dedication apparent in every shift of his shoulders.

 _I envy his strength so much._

"I like animals." His voice was a surprise in the rain; more because she wasn't sure how it followed from what they'd been talking about before. Would he have been a stable hand, then? "Horses. Dogs. I like them, and they like me. Always have. But when the—" He paused. "When there were signs of the Calamity, people told my mother and father that I should use a sword. Because I've always been good with swords, too."

"Do you… like fighting?"

He shrugged. "It's not about liking it or not."

She didn't answer. If she wasn't careful, she would drag him away from his story, from his answer, and she realized she wanted desperately to hear what it was. That curiosity was stronger than how morose she had felt moments before.

"I trained with the knights alongside other recruits. It was just like when I was a kid, only now it wasn't just me. The hope was that, in a few years, someone would be worthy of finding the Master Sword. But there was something our instructors told us, every single day." He paused again.

"What was it?"

Link seemed to roll the next words around in his head. Then he turned slightly, looked at her again with his wide blue eyes. "They said, 'Anyone can be the Hero.'"

* * *

Mipha's arms were red blurs, the Lightscale Trident lashing out like a living thing, a _liquid_ thing, tracing silver arcs in the air that rained sparks as she thrust and parried and twisted. Her feet did not move. Her eyes, huge and golden and brimming with the same quiet expression that had made the Waterblight draw its weapon in defense, never blinked. Only her arms, her shoulders, her hips, her hands, her weapon.

The Calamity matched her, blow for blow. It stared back at her, as if answering her determination with a kind of curious apathy. Its mouth slowly twisted up into a grin.

"You," it said, parrying one of her thrusts and then shoving, sending her back a step. "You in particular I think I would like to kill a second time."

Its hand flashed out, past the Lightscale Trident, reaching for her.

Its fingers closed in front of her face as a cyclone exploded at its feet. It hovered a scant few inches off the ground, looking down with that same apathetic curiosity—and then Revali's Gale howled and the Calamity went hurtling straight up, spinning.

Revali was in the whirlwind, and Ganon swung its sword—but the Rito was just out of reach, and the Great Eagle Bow was in his hand. The arrow he pulled taut was armored like a guardian, tipped with a glowing blue blade. Ganon's eyes focused on that arrow, just for a moment.

Then three arrows hit Ganon in its chest, its throat, and the gap in its armor out of which the Malice stared. There was an eruption of light, and of power, as the ancient weapons dug into its armor. No one could say if Ganon felt pain, but the earth shook as it _growled_. It flexed its power, blowing the whirlwind apart, and Revali was sent spinning. The Calamity righted itself as its momentum carried it upward, and it turned its eye on the Rito.

"I suppose that I will satisfy myself with all of you, and let you dictate the order."

The world disappeared in a white flash, not from the heavens but from the _ground_ , and a woman rode the thunder, gold on her head and steel in her hands. The earth pulled at the two, but still they rose, the Calamity on dregs of wind and the woman on eruptions of lightning. For the first time in a long time, Ganon seemed to pause.

The Calamity's voice was strange and thick when it spoke in a language that had long since left it behind: "My sister—"

Lightning crashed into the Calamity's face.

" _You will not speak the tongue of my mothers!_ " Urbosa's shout sounded over the crash, over the roar. She was screaming in Hylian, denying the Calamity the dignity of address. "You are not Gerudo! You are not even voe, and _no monster_ will speak our language!"

Gravity's claws pulled at the two warriors. The Calamity's growl grew to something else, a beast stirring within an infinitely vast cave, as it began to descend. As they both began to fall. As Urbosa raised her hand to the sky.

" _Cousin!_ Lend me your power!"

And in the distance Farosh raised its head, its enormous horn surging with lightning. It answered her call with its own. The Thunder Helm glowed as brightly as the power of the gods.

A thunderbolt that filled the heavens fell upon the Calamity—but it was not a flash, there and gone as lightning was. It writhed like a living thing, like a dragon born from fury itself, and as it crashed into Ganon it drove the monster down, careening to the waiting, ruined floor below. Miniature bolts peeled off from it as it ate into the Calamity's armored skin, their arc scoring stone and blasting apart the last parapets of the crumbling tower.

The Calamity crashed into the floor far from the princess, and lightning exploded from the impact point like a boulder crashing into a lake. Electricity still coursed over Ganon's skin as the beast fought its way to its feet. It flexed its free hand and now wielded _two_ swords, and as it threw back its head and roared its fury—

Daruk brought the Boulder Breaker down on top of it, smashing it into the floor, through the floor, hurling it down into the pit in which it had been fighting the Hero for a century. It fell, and fell, and fell.

"Champions!" Daruk called out again, and Revali and Urbosa touched down together at the same time that Mipha ran up, and all three were looking to him. "We can't hold that thing forever, but we don't need to! We just have to buy time. Are you ready?"

They were about to answer when the Calamity exploded out of the flooring between them, aflame with Malice, twin swords dancing in its hands like extensions of its body. The eruption of stone staggered them all, and then its swords were flashing.

What followed was a whirlwind of steel and stone and fire and violence and lightning as the Champions fought together in death as they never had in life, unleashing all of their strength with no thought given to where that would leave them in the hour to follow. Revali traced a perimeter in the air around them, sending ancient arrows soaring with perfect precision between the limbs of his compatriots to strike home against Ganon's body. The air in front of Mipha was alive with her weapon, which clamped its jaws around the Calamity's blades, shoving them off-course and pulling the beast itself away from its center of balance. Urbosa whirled in open combat with Ganon, sword singing and shield bashing against the base of the burning blades, and every space not filled by her weapon was filled by lightning. And Daruk was there, in every moment, and every time one of the others slipped he would step in and turn aside a blow that would have crushed any of them should it have connected.

Ganon's body was a burning blur, its swords cutting and whirring and chopping. From four directions it was attacked and from four directions it defended itself.

The dragons' smoking heads rose above the castle and the guardian gods roared, their power exploding to life beneath the beast.

The Calamity fought through it all. Its motions were always perfectly sure; its blades shifted in perfect synchronicity; every action was, even when it resulted in taking a wound, the best action to take in that moment. And with every passing exchange it grew faster. Surer. Stronger. It even began to laugh as it fought. Why wouldn't it? These were Champions, but for a century it had warred with the Hero.

For a breadth of time spanning perhaps five seconds there was perfect balance. Every blow thrown was intercepted and turned aside. Every follow-up strike was parried. Swings too powerful to be blocked were ducked under. The dragons leveled their assault.

Then the balance broke.

Ganon's fist smashed against Daruk's face, sending the Goron flying like a rock launched from a sling. Urbosa's sword came down on its shoulder and it released one sword to grab her by the wrist, swinging her over and down as if she were a flail, shattering the stone floor under her back. It hurled her after Daruk. Revali was on it, sword flashing, and it slapped him in the chest so that he hit the floor ten meters away. Mipha held out for nearly a full second before it slipped past her guard and wrapped its hand around her throat. It smiled as it squeezed.

Fire and ice and lightning exploded at its feet, the force of the blast tearing Mipha from his grasp and sending her careening limply across the room. The dragons bellowed as they unleashed their fury, and Ganon bellowed in return as it held up its hands and flung its power at the guardian gods of the land.

There was a great deal of screaming from mouths that could shake the mountains, and the dragons fell, writhing, in different directions—all away from the castle.

The earth shook, then grew still.

And then, just for a moment, there was quiet.

The Calamity looked about itself. Urbosa and Daruk lay in an unmoving pile, half-buried in the same rubble that it had been flung into earlier. Revali did not stir; nor did Mipha. The dragonsong had faded. The wind had died.

Slowly it turned its golden eyes to the blood of the goddess and the soul of the Hero. It paused, as if savoring the moment. Took a step forward.

In the silence, it was easy to hear a person scrambling to the top of the wall. In any other situation, this would have been so small as to go unnoticed. Now, though, the Calamity looked up.

"Ah," it said. "So, you have decided to die for your beloved princess, too?"

Paya stared back at it from atop the rubble that had once been the southern-facing doorway. Her silver hair blew in the wind. Ganon watched her as she took in the sight of the Sanctum. It smiled when the color drained from her face, seeing the scattered Champions, seeing her princess, seeing the Hero.

Its smile fell away when it saw the flash of blue in her hands.

She brought that blue to her lips.

Ganon held out its own hand, reaching for the girl with its hate, to crush her without touching her, to pull her soul apart like a child with a spider.

There was a flash of radiance under her skin, like the moon reflecting the light of day, and Ganon hissed, recoiling as Zelda's blessing rebuked it.

Paya brought the Ocarina of Time to her lips and played the song that had lulled the blood of the goddess to sleep since Hylia had walked the world.

* * *

"'Anyone' can be the Hero?" It was an absurd idea; her first instinct was to laugh, as if responding to a joke, but the look on his face said that he was not trying to be funny. "Why would they ever say such a thing?"

Again, he paused. He might have been trying to gauge her reaction, to determine if he'd shamed himself in front of her, but whatever his conclusion he did not let it stop him. "Because it is true."

She folded her hands in her lap. She waited.

"I think it's true, anyway. The sword and its guardian… everything I've learned from them makes me believe. That the Hero is made, not born. That what matters most is…" Here he paused again, faltering. His color did not rise, but he looked away from her; unbidden, the thought occurred to her that his embarrassment was rather like a puppy's. She felt a sudden urge to console him.

She couldn't say for sure what the source of his embarrassment was, so she made a guess. "It is all right to talk about what you've done. I promise that I will not think you are self-aggrandizing." _I don't think I ever could._

His expression didn't change, he didn't look at her again, but he nodded and continued. "What matters most is a willingness to do what needs to be done. There have been times when the Calamity returned and everyone was afraid. Then, only one person was willing to even try to take up the sword. But there are times—like now—where _many_ people want to protect Hyrule. Protect their families. Protect… everyone." He gestured with his hand, though that gesture only seemed to include the castle. "I thought that the person who took up the sword would be the best fighter, the most fearless… but that's almost never the case."

Zelda was not an anthropological historian; it occurred to her that she actually knew very little about the legacy of the Hero, important as it was. She would try to amend this failing later. For now, she just nodded.

"Nobody _really_ knows what makes a person more likely to be the Hero, or else we'd train for that quality. Even the sword and its guardians only meet those who have already proven themselves. I thought it would be me, because I've always been a good fighter…" Now he looked at her again, and she was struck by the intensity of his eyes. He wanted so desperately for her to understand. "But that's not why." He did not swallow; he did not blush; he did not look away; his expression was so stolid it would be difficult for anyone else to tell how hard it was for him to keep talking. "And while I was training, I found something besides strength to drive me."

Her curiosity was humming under her skin. "What was it?"

"You."

* * *

The last notes of Zelda's Lullaby faded, and Paya lowered the ocarina, returning it to a leather pouch at her waist. Her expression was distant, removed.

Ganon slid the blades of its sword against each other, and fire and Malice rained on the floor between its feet as it walked toward the mound of rubble on which Paya stood. It could be patient. It could be sure. It would kill her, and with every defender dead it would address the divine princess at its leisure.

Then the air shifted, as if from empty space being filled. The increase in pressure was only temporary, but it created a breeze so strong that it pulled at the Malice around the Calamity, and the beast stopped and looked about itself. With its eyes it took in the Sanctum. With its ears it heard the marching of hundreds and hundreds of feet.

It turned its eyes back to the girl, and then it stopped in its tracks.

Behind Paya stood three figures clad in green. One young, sea-skinned and smelling of brine; one older, sharp-eyed and wild-haired; one who bore the blessing of the goddess under his skin and carried her love in his heart. All three stared openly at Ganon, not with hate but with recognition.

"What is this trickery?" the Calamity whispered, bemused and disbelieving.

The air shifted again, and it looked up. Around. Everywhere.

They were gathered, the Heroes—standing around the arena that the Sanctum had become. Mostly men, mostly Hylian, mostly in green, but representing every people and every color that the gods had painted the world with. They stood steadily on debris that should have collapsed under them, they stood on edges which should have pulled them down into pits; those with wings stood in the very air. All of them watched on.

Who can say what storm raged in the Calamity's mind, seeing the faces of those who had been the arbiters of its defeat since the dawning of the world? As it swung the hollow of its face from one corner of the Sanctum to the other, as its hands tightened on the grips of its swords? None could speak to the truth, save the beast itself.

It only said: "If you think I will be delayed by—"

Footsteps. Hard-soled boots, from the north-east entrance. The Calamity turned. Paya turned. Only the Heroes paid no mind.

A figure stepped into the Sanctum. Taller than the other Hylian men, his green tunic had long ago been traded away for the armor of a general. He had discarded his helmet, letting his sandy-blonde hair hang down to his shoulders. He stared at Ganon with his one blue eye. There was plain steel in his left hand.

Ganon recoiled despite itself, sinking into a defensive stance, both blades brought up.

" _You_ ," it hissed, and that hiss shook the earth. "How many times must you fall? How many times must I kill you?"

The Hero of Time rolled his shoulders, hefting a round shield in his right hand. He was silent; he stalked around the edge of the Sanctum, sword held out toward the Calamity, point gesturing at its heart. The Calamity rotated to face him, staying perpetually ready.

After twenty paces, the ancient warrior allowed himself a thin smile. "I am grateful."

Ganon shifted its feet, leading with its left foot. It prepared to launch with its right. It had been fighting a Hero for a century; it knew how this one fought, all those lifetimes ago.

"To be called upon one last time—to rise in service to her—is an incomparable honor. I have you to thank for that." He raised his sword, shifting to a combat stance.

"You are only delaying the inevitable." Ganon spoke above a whisper, now, and the echo of its voice was a howl that sent a gale blasting through the castle. Paya shut her ears against the sound. The Heroes paid it no mind at all. "I have done combat with your better for a _century._ If you wish to die by my hand again, I will oblige you with relish."

The Hero of Time, in the chronicles that spoke of his life, was supposed to have laughed only very rarely. Indeed, he did not laugh now, but he showed his teeth in a grin that recalled the snarl of a wolf. "I won't be the one killing you today."

* * *

The rain fell hard and heavy and did not seem like it would ever let up, and the Hero's words hung in the air like a pronunciation from the gods in a language she had never learned.

"…Me?"

He nodded. For a moment he did not offer anything more. Perhaps he was reaching for words. Perhaps he was mastering himself.

It didn't matter. Something in that answer was like a fire inside of her, burning down through the walls of her stomach, and she felt the world shifting wildly beneath her. That couldn't stand. To speak of her that way—the absurdity. The, the _impertinence_. To pretend that he had looked to a failure and found inspiration, found something worth doing… everything for! _Everything!_ All the world rested on his shoulders and he dared to claim, to _pretend_ —

"Please," she said, stunning herself with her own calm. "Please explain what you mean."

A pause of four seconds. Then: "You didn't have a choice. Your fate was decided by your blood. It didn't matter if you were strong, weak, wise, foolish… you had to do it. You _had_ to."

"I haven't done it yet! I haven't done _anything_ yet!" The calm slipped and she found she didn't care.

He stared, waiting to see if she would say more, and when she didn't: "In the times when everyone was afraid, someone rose out of necessity, because no one else would. It's supposed to have been harder for them. They were less suited to it, but Ganon returned anyway, they had to fight him anyway." He flexed his hands, staring at them. "And I realized… if somebody didn't step up… if somebody was less suited, but took up the Master Sword…" He shook his head. "Anyone who can draw the sword is suited. But _anyone_ can draw the sword. And whoever it was, I didn't want them to…"

"Say it. Whatever it is, say it."

"You've been hurting for such a long time," he said. "So, if I'd never wanted to be a fighter… if I wasn't good at it… and they told me I had to be a knight anyway?"

She swallowed.

"I would have looked to you. I would have thought of fighting alongside you. Of holding you up. And I would have done everything the same."

* * *

The Calamity's eyes darted away from the Hero of Time, but only for a moment, the barest fraction of a second. And in that fraction, the Hero halved the distance between them, never seeming to change his stance. Ganon took an involuntary step back.

"Not you?" it asked. "You don't have the power to fight me now." It grinned, wide and vicious and revelatory, as if it was just realizing the truth of its own words. "All of you together wouldn't."

The ancient warrior tilted his head. "The Champions, and the Dragons—and now the Heroes too, you say."

They circled one another, then, drawing steadily closer. Ganon no longer retreated; it seemed to have the measure of its opponent, at least enough to engage him. Paya stood, silent and breathless.

And then the Hero lowered his guard. Lowered his shield, lowered his sword.

Ganon lunged.

* * *

She tried to accept this; she couldn't. There was something inside of her that was stuck, some obstacle that wouldn't be dislodged by the Hero's sentiment, however desperately she wanted to wrap herself in it, however badly her soul cried out for her to do so. She wouldn't allow herself that succor. All she had were questions, still.

"Well. You did decide to be the Hero, after all."

"Yes, I did. To try, anyway."

Succor turned to bitterness. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? A child's hypothetical, meant to mirror her own situation in his, could never reflect the truth of the Hero. Perhaps he was a good man, but he was still a product of the gifts granted him by the gods.

She said, not trying to hide that bitterness: "Because it would be easy? Or glorious?"

"No."

His answer was so instant that she flinched. She couldn't look at him; she knew that his eyes were on her, and as much as she knew intellectually that he would not judge her for her words she couldn't tamp down the shame that his earnestness stoked in her chest.

"I decided to reach for the sword because if I didn't, then someone else might. Someone who might fail. If I didn't do it, then you would have had to shoulder that burden. Perhaps someone else could have done it, but. I thought of a world where you fought the Calamity alone. You needed to be… I needed to protect you. I needed to help you."

She fought the urge to grab his hand. Bit down on her tongue, fighting the urge to speak. In a few weeks he would march to war for her; for a hundred years he would fight for her. He would die for her, and keep on fighting in death, and she didn't know that now but the woman who would remember this later, who would realize what it meant, would feel this moment blowing apart the firmament of her soul.

The Hero said, his voice hoarse: "It had to be me."

A hundred years and more hence, memory smashed against the wall of the princess's amnesia. The wall toppled.

* * *

Ganon's blade caught only empty air.

The Hero of Time was gone. The walls were empty. The Champions had vanished from where they lay. In the whole chamber, only Paya and Ganon stood, the former staring in tight-lipped hope and the latter staggering at the shock of its attack meeting no resistance.

Paya barely breathed. She did not pray, though if she had wanted her goddess to hear her, she needed only speak.

There was a ringing, the sounding of the bell that had presided at the birth of the world.

There was an eruption as the girl woke, though her eyes were still closed, her arms still fiercely clutched her Hero's body. The wall in the amnesiac's mind crumbled, blown away on the torrent of the power, and the past flowed through that space where once bricks had stood. Of that mighty edifice, fit to hold back the shared past of the blood of the gods, only one humble brick remained on the ground. The past flowed over and around it, memory blossoming atop it.

Ganon raised its head toward its quarry, turning to face her squarely.

Within the vast interior space where resided the vitality of the goddess, the power unfurled itself with the rustle of mighty wings, the bristling of cosmic feathers. Zelda felt everything, knew everything, and every moment of her life from her first memory of her mother's face to the desperate image of Link's back receding came flooding to her all at once. She had done all of this. It had all been for this purpose. It had been for this moment.

"Take it," she said to eternity. "I will be host to you in your fullness. We will end this together, and whatever comes after… will come in a world free of Ganon."

The power embraced her. Enveloped her. Swept her away. She did not even tumble; she drifted, becoming something greater than she had been before. Her thoughts melted into the light.

The golden figure opened her eyes.

* * *

The Sanctum—the castle itself—exploded outward. There was no debris. Every stone, every beam, every mote of dust dissolved into radiant golden light and disappeared.

The stone under Paya's feet vanished, but through her connection to that golden mind she knew what was happening, was not afraid as she landed on her feet.

The Calamity held its arm before its eyes, warding off the light. This was familiar to it, too.

The golden figure lifted the Hero's guttering soul in her arms, and kissed him, and laid him on the ground.

"Rest," said she, in a voice that echoed throughout the sky. His hand still clutched fiercely to the hilt of his broken sword, and she brushed her fingers against his forehead.

She rose to her feet, turning to face the Calamity. She raised her hand, summoning to it a long sword whose blade danced with flames.

Ganon roared its laughter, its challenge. "It should have been you! You could have held me! See the ruin you have brought! See how the world crumbles!"

Hylia answered with the ringing of a bell.


	50. Legacy

A century. Had she warred with the Calamity in the Hero's place she would have lasted a century and in that century kept its evil confined. Its influence would have spread, yes, and many would have been the evils that grew from it—but she would have kept it contained. By marshalling her strength, she would have been able to deny Ganon its dominion for a hundred years and more, until the Hero returned. She would have exhausted herself. She would have broken, in the end. But she would have succeeded.

She did not have a century, now. The Calamity had grown in strength. The Hero would not be joining the battle.

She did not need a century, now. There was nothing to hold for. Everything that could be arranged—all help that could be called—every step she could have taken had been taken.

So, Hylia unleashed a century of fury all at once. For the first time since Demise walked free and coveted the power of the gods, Hylia brought her burning sword to bear.

She lunged, crossing the distance between them. She swung. Ganon's abyssal steel caught the blow, the Malice roared against the flames of her power, and the sky groaned above them. There was no runoff—the earth did not shake beneath them, the scorched ground was not disturbed. No energy was wasted, and every shred of power that the combatants wielded was invested in the motion of their violence.

She saw as Paya ran towards Link, arms up to cover her eyes against the blinding war as it unfolded. Link lay prone, the broken hilt in his hand, and the air whirled around him. He clung so fiercely to the world, even in death, even with the Master Sword broken.

Hylia swung again, and Ganon countered with both of its blades, and the two fell into a rhythm that recalled the first war, the war that had written the order of the world. Ganon did not know that rhythm, had never seen it even in its dreams, but the goddess knew, and in this moment she was comfortable. She was fleet. She whirled and struck and the air around her burned like the sun, and the air around Ganon reached with long thick fingers that would pull her down into oblivion.

She swung her sword in a searing overhead arc. Ganon shoved back with the blade in its right hand, sending her blade bouncing up. With its left sword it swung for her midriff, and she flipped backward, and the sun dawned in her hand. She flung that dawn into Ganon's face.

Ganon's sword disappeared and the beast struck with a motion mirroring hers. The world shuddered as Malice and the celestial power ate at each other, fractal sparks and cinders peeling off from the point of contact as the fabric of reality began to burn. Hylia and Ganon's eyes met across the conflagration. Who could read a goddess's expression?

But Ganon smiled. A goddess's century of fury unleashed in moments—but the Calamity had spent that century growing more terrible, not less. It reached within itself, drawing on some deeper well, and it _shoved_.

The goddess staggered. She could have deflected the blow—but shoving aside the full power of Ganon's hatred would have unleashed it upon the land, and the land would have broken. Instead she took that devastation into herself, and it echoed and rolled across the vastness of her being. She quaked. Staggered again. Then brought her sword up and jammed it hard into Ganon's chest.

The Calamity bellowed as blood and fire and Malice exploded from its mouth. It would have gladly turned aside that power, letting the land shatter—but the goddess's attacks gave it no such opportunity. Perhaps it knew that she never would.

So they clashed, the first god of Hyrule and the greatest evil to ever walk its face, while a girl stood watch over a broken spirit.

* * *

 _Ganon is stronger._

It was absurd. It was blasphemous. To even think the words in that order was heretical in a way that laughed at the very _idea_ of taboo, but in that second Paya understood that it was true. Zelda was gone, replaced by the fullness of the goddess Hylia, and with all of the love and fury of the goddess unleashed the Calamity was still more terrible. She could not see their battle; it was like watching two suns wrestle for supremacy, but through her connection to Zelda—to Hylia—she understood that the shape of that battle was growing more and more desperate, even in these early exchanges.

 _What can I do? I have to help her._

She looked down. Link was at her feet, lying on his back. His body was gone; she was looking at his soul, as plainly as she had when he had rescued her from the Calamity. The Master Sword was broken in his hand; she did not know where the shards of the blade had gone. Perhaps they had been obliterated.

 _I promised him. I promised him we would come for him. That we would save him._

 _I promised._

She knelt next to him. Reached out with her hand, which shook at the audacity of what she was about to do. Brushed her fingers against his face. She could feel him, not as if he were flesh but still solid, there, _real_. He was here.

"Master Link?" How easily she fell into the safety of formal address. How badly she needed it. "Master Link? Can you hear me?"

The Hero did not stir. His eyes did not open. As she watched, the light that was _him_ faded, by degrees.

She held her hands over her mouth. Reminded herself to breathe. She couldn't help him if she wasn't calm.

 _I can't help him at all. I can't focus on helping him. I have to help Hy—I have to help Zelda._

Her eyes wandered to the sword. Had it been whole, she would have grabbed it. In her heart of hearts she believed, she _knew_ that the blasphemy of hoisting the sword would kill her, but she would accept that death if it meant there was a chance, even the barest sliver of hope that she might join in battle against the Calamity. But the sword was broken, and its light was out. Like the Hero.

* * *

Hylia brought her sword up, toward the Calamity's stomach, and Ganon caught the blade with its hand. It looked past the goddess. She turned her head to follow its line of sight.

Paya was facing away from them, bent over Link, trying to rouse the Hero. Looking to the sword. To hope.

"Do you see them?" Ganon said. "How long the line of loving souls who have offered themselves up on the altar of your folly."

"Speak not of the courageous," she replied, and her anger fed the radiance of her power; she raised the blade higher. Ganon's arm quivered with the effort of holding back the blow.

"Speak? Not I. Not I. I am but the knife; their blood flows for you."

Then Ganon's stone mouth split, the teeth of its armor parting. It should have opened into the same void of Malice out of which its eyes stared, but it did not: when Ganon opened its mouth there was only a yawning pit of darkness, reaching, swallowing the light in the air around it. That darkness gathered until it took on a color, blue-black then purple then red, and when it shifted to a searing fuchsia light Hylia saw what the beast had planned.

She released her blade, which vanished.

The fuchsia light became yellow, then white, as Ganon's power gathered.

Hylia ran, her steps lengthened by the beating of mighty wings.

Ganon screamed triumph and unleashed a bolt of power from its very heart. The bolt spun as it sailed through the air, and the air was pulled in by its gravity. Paya looked up just in time to see it coming.

* * *

Paya had no means by which to understand the light that was screaming toward her. She understood that she would die; she understood that she would have failed to protect the Hero once more.

 _One more broken promise—_

Then Hylia was before her, wings spread, facing down oblivion in her servant's stead. The goddess held high her fist, which shone with power, and Paya could only stare as Hylia brought that power down in a blow to meet Ganon's attack.

The shockwave of force that rolled off of that impact blew back the feathers of Hylia's wings and nearly knocked Paya to the floor—and then the projectile was screaming back toward Ganon, traveling faster than before. That bolt of hate, of _hunger_ , sailed toward its master with the same destructive potential.

Ganon swung with one arm, and with its hand deflected the projectile again. Then, in that moment, Paya understood.

 _The dead man's volley._

Hylia struck the projectile, and then it was deflected once more by Ganon, each time gaining in speed. They were locked in this contest; whoever slipped would bear the full force of an attack that grew stronger, more virulent, more powerful with every blow. The goddess and the beast hurled devastation at one another, back and forth.

And in Paya's mind her grandmother clapped to the rhythm.

 _Faster. Faster. Follow it. It grows swifter, but the rate at which it grows swifter is fixed. Feel it. See it._

Hylia deflected. Then Ganon. Hylia. Ganon.

 _See the moment. It will come. Be ready._

Paya drew the eight-fold blade from her belt as she exploded to her feet. She ducked under the radiance of Hylia's wings. She felt celestial purity brushing against her back, and she had not understood rapture until that moment. Yes, her love was answered. Yes, that was everything she had ever wanted.

" _Paya!_ " Hylia's voice in panic, then the impact of celestial power, and the projectile roared past Paya, so close that she felt it searing her clothing.

She ran low, eyes on Ganon. She held her blade in a position to strike. She saw as the Calamity spotted her, as its golden eyes lit up with amusement and hunger and hate and anticipation. She met it with the coldness of her training, with all the pure focused intent to kill she could muster.

 _I am coming for you,_ she thought at it. _Let's see you deflect with my sword in your eye._

Ganon batted the projectile, which screamed past her again. The beast's focus was on her.

Half the distance crossed. She did not even feel it as she ran. Was she breathing? It didn't matter.

Hylia screamed her name again, echoing down into the bedrock of her consciousness, and Paya ignored the very call of her soul. Her grandmother's hands clapped. Once more the projectile sailed past her.

Ganon swung with its right arm. Its fist collided with the orb of destruction. Her grandmother clapped. The orb was sent flying. Ganon's swing carried its body forward, creating an opening on its right side. Its left arm was prepared, though. Prepared to catch her in the attack that it knew was coming.

Her grandmother clapped.

Paya swung for the orb.

The impact lasted for only an instant. The shockwave it sent through her would have broken every bone in her body, burned her flesh to cinders, shattered her mind so totally that her ghost would never haunt those lands—but she held. Beneath her skin there flared the reflected light of day. The world teetered.

Her sword shattered. The light under her skin went out. Paya was sent flying backward, spinning through the air. The orb bounced back toward Ganon, too quickly for it to swing in defense.

Paya landed on her back beside the Hero as light exploded from Ganon's body. As the Calamity screamed in real, sheer agony.

 _Go, my goddess. My princess._

Darkness enveloped her.

* * *

Ganon's voice shook the leveled ground of the late Hyrule Castle as its own evil, fed over and over by the repeated exchanges of blows, was unleashed against it. Light shone from within the yawning shadow of its mouth, gouts of Malice and flame burst from its eyes, and every joint of its body surged with corrosive energies. It staggered, its voice strangled by its own hate.

Hylia smashed into it with all of her power.

A comet of light and dark traced a burning arc, beginning in the heart of the place where the castle had once stood and stretching toward the south, the emptiest and flattest area of Hyrule Field. The comet flashed gold and purple as Hylia unleashed her radiance against the Calamity, over and over, through the channel of her fists. She wrapped her hands around its face and screamed an eternity of pain and love and fury and devotion and hope and poured herself into it, the light eating at the darkness.

They struck the field and the warring energies exploded outward, an expanding dome of light and Malice. The grass grew and died and burned to cinders, creating a perfect circle of roiling devastation reaching five hundred meters from the point of impact.

Ganon's hands wrapped around the goddess's, wrenching the killing light away from its face, and hurled her bodily away from it. She turned in the air, landing deftly on her feet as Ganon regained its own footing, and with a shout it cast off the last remnants of its deflected power. It did not draw darkness and light into its mouth; it would not make the same mistake twice, even if Paya had been left far behind.

Know that Zelda, the woman who had lived a life without her mother and grown beside the Hero and traveled with Paya, was not the one fighting. She was a conduit for Hylia, who had manifested in her fullness. Zelda might be described as sleeping, insofar as she existed at all.

But echoes remained. Plans had been made. Plans that would come to fruition. Hylia knew these plans, as surely as Zelda did. With her power—the smallest part—she reached out along familiar channels, sending a single impulse.

* * *

The large, clunky, reverse-engineered but very much _functional_ Sheikah Slate flashed from its place on the crowded table in Hateno. Its owner looked over, smoothed her skirt, and hopped onto the table to look at it more squarely. To be sure.

"Is it time?" her assistant asked.

"Looks like it," she said. "Hit the switch."

He did.

An answering signal went out, boosted by the power of the guidance stone.

* * *

Ganon recovered and Hylia was in its face again, sword in hand, swinging.

The beast's swords flashed back to existence as it intercepted the blow—and then the ones that followed, falling like rain, the size of the goddess's weapon having no relation to how she swung it. So fast did she swing, using the impact of Ganon's deflections to make her next blow fall even faster and with greater force, that the Calamity was locked in place, using both arms to defend itself. But as Hylia grew faster, so did her opponent.

The goddess swung to decapitate. Ganon ducked beneath it, raised its right arm, and brought its sword down for the goddess's shoulder. The goddess weaved around the blow, moving like a dancer, like the origin of all swordplay, and her weapon flashed toward Ganon's throat. Ganon caught the blow, answered with its own, and Hylia deflected and struck again. And again, and again, and they fell into the rhythm once more, the rhythm that had felled Demise, the rhythm that had seen the blood of the goddess through wars reaching back before recorded time—and which could not work against Ganon.

It answered the rhythm. Grew swifter. Learned appallingly quickly, bringing to bear uncounted millennia of uninterrupted experience. The goddess's motions were planned out six moves at a time, or eight, or ten—and no matter how deep her planning went, no matter how perfect her form, Ganon seemed able to answer it, anticipating the openings in its own technique, guarding itself where it should have been vulnerable.

Faster they went, and faster, until they could not perfectly contain their power, until liquid light and boiling Malice peeled off from the impact of their blades, until the sound of their weapons clashing was a roar fit to silence Death Mountain itself.

The pattern broke. Ganon shifted an extra degree, catching Hylia's sword, blowing wide her guard. She was prepared for the follow-up swing, would drive her sword into its eye.

But it didn't swing. Its fist smashed into her chest, and she was sent careening. She bounced, the earth torn in her wake, and flared her wings to steady herself. Blood the color of molten gold ran from her mouth, painting her lips with sunlight. She landed on her feet. Sank into a defensive stance, both hands on her blade.

Ganon did not run; it walked forward, almost relaxed. Why would it hurry? She would not flee, after all. The earth shook under its footsteps as it let some small sliver of its power tell in the world around it. It delighted in the expression of its mightiness, apparently.

The earth kept shaking even as it was not taking a step. The ground quaked even when it stopped and looked down at its feet.

Ganon raised its head, staring at Hylia. Hylia was a goddess, ergo she did not allow herself to quirk a smile, but if she had been there then Zelda would have.

The first explosion that erupted on the Calamity's back did not stagger it. The wave of heat and light blasted the ground beneath it and sent up plumes of smoke and dust, but Ganon was not affected. Nor by the second, or the fourth, or the eighth.

But they kept coming.

The quaking grew heavier, and the explosions came faster.

In the distance, from the east and the north and the south and the west, the quaking of the earth gave way to the beating of heavy feet, the thunder of stampede. The first and closest unleashed lances of light from their eyes as hundreds more six-legged figures dashed across Hyrule Field, cresting hills and stones and ruined buildings with equal ease, equal alacrity, their shining red eyes all focused on their ancient enemy.

Ganon unleashed its power—and that power was met, obliterated, by the light of Hylia. It bellowed in frustration, in mounting rage, as its corruption was blunted and destroyed.

And the Guardians, in their hundreds, converged on the Calamity.

* * *

Paya came to with a gasp. Instantly she was on her feet—and regretting it as her vision darkened, forcing her to grab at her own knees to keep from falling.

 _Where am I? Where is Hylia? Where is Ganon?_

Her vision was dark, still, and her ears were filled by the dull roar of the beating of her own heart. She willed herself calm, willed herself to breathe deeply, and slowly, _slowly_ did she regain the clarity of her senses.

She remembered the dead man's volley. Remembered interfering. Remembered pain, so intense and so sudden and so deep that it had been the equal of Zelda's blessing, burning out her protection in a moment. But it had worked. It had destroyed her sword and nearly killed her, but it had _worked_. She remembered Ganon's scream as its own power was unleashed against it. She thought she had seen Hylia's power, bright and shining, and—

And at her feet lay the Hero's soul, in perfect repose.

Perhaps it was only the bare light of day that created the illusion that he was fading. The shadows of the castle had been deep, and certainly now there was nothing to block the sun; the entire foundation of the castle had been scoured clean by Hylia's awakening. Perhaps that was why the Hero was so much harder to see now.

But, no. That wasn't true, was it? It had never been true.

She reached for something to say to him, some prayer that might reach him. She found nothing.

The earth shook. In the distance—perhaps two kilometers away—Ganon's voice was raised in indignity and fury.

Paya turned. Saw the light of Hylia and the Malice crashing against each other. But more, she saw the air beyond filled with lances of blue light. She heard the Guardians firing, saw dozens and dozens of eruptions as their killing blasts peppered Ganon's back.

Above her, a halo of green drifted across the sky, seeking the battle.

* * *

Dozens of blasts struck the Calamity's back and sides every second, explosions layered on top of and beneath each other with growing ferocity. The shockwave of the detonations would have killed any person standing near Ganon, but Hylia was not a person, and for as much punishment as the secondary eruptions laid on her divine body many more times were laid on Ganon by the actual impact.

She grappled with the beast. It spewed its power from its mouth and eyes, seeking to infect some or all of the Guardians with the Malice, but she met those eruptions with controlled bursts of her own, burning away the deadly potential. The Calamity roared in frustration, using its greater strength to swing her into the path of the Guardians' assault, but the machines aimed exactly and precisely, and every shot slipped past the goddess and struck home against the monster.

After thousands of blows Ganon staggered, falling to one knee. Hylia struck it in the face with her fist, with her elbow, drove her knee into its throat, and every blow was punctuated by an eruption of light that dimmed the sun by contrast. Again and again she struck, and the Guardians who stood on top of buildings and hills and each other to gain unique firing angles kept up their assault, and Hylia's voice was raised in a warrior's scream as she laid her fury against the Calamity.

But it wouldn't fall. And if it wasn't falling, it was winning. She understood this. That understanding did not blunt her indignation, her frustration, as Ganon reached out with one stone hand and grabbed her by the head. There were two suns in her hands, and she jammed the suns against the joint of the Calamity's elbow, searing the stone, eating away at the lever. Malice boiled at her touch; she could _feel_ it as the Calamity's power was being broiled inside of it.

Then it slammed her into the earth. Then again. And again.

The moat surrounding Hyrule Castle spewed water into the sky, where it hung suspended before crashing back down. Every impact merited a new jump, a new furious roiling, until all of the water in that river-fed barrier leapt and arced as if seeking the shore, the heavens—anywhere but the bed where it lay.

And again.

In Kakariko Village, the ornaments on the brim of Impa's hat jangled. She wondered if it was only her nerves, the protestations of an aging body. She slammed her palm against her thigh to quiet their shaking. When the ornaments still danced, she stared in confusion.

And again.

Sidon watched ripples spreading across the surface of the great reservoir. There was no wind. He turned, looking up to Vah Ruta, and wondered. Mipha would know, he thought. For the many thousandth time he wished that she might advise him, that she might quell the anxiety crawling up his spine.

And again.

Death Mountain groaned, and Yunobo looked up from his perch above Goron City. That rumbling… he hadn't heard the like since Vah Rudania had been calmed. Was something wrong with the Divine Beast? Was something wrong with the mountain? Oh, man, what _would_ they do if Death Mountain just… became active again? Was that possible?

And again.

Lightning danced between Riju's fingertips. An arc traced a current from the pad of her thumb to her forefinger, her middle, then ring, then pinky. Back again. When it got back to her thumb the bolt fizzled, and she couldn't summon it again. She snapped her fingers, to no avail. She wiped the sweat from her brow, swearing at a level that Buliara couldn't hear. Something was wrong. Something was happening.

And again.

Tulin whooped and laughed a shrieking child's laugh as he ducked and soared and banked around the high stone pillars of the flight range. Saki circled above, ever watchful. Teba, who would be grounded for many more weeks, watched from below. There was no need to introduce Tulin to the more strenuous exercises yet, but—and then Teba, through his feet, felt something moving in the earth. Or beneath it. Over it. The earth shook, as if under the tread of a beast, and Teba tried not to let his son and his wife see as he looked about him for the danger.

And again. And again. And again.

Every impact was punctuated by an eruption of Malice, an outpouring of devastation, and as the light ate at Ganon so too did Ganon eat at the light. Hylia fought in its grip with an explosion of force and carefully aimed blows, and hundreds more blasts from the Guardians fell on the beast in an unceasing torrent, but the Calamity was single-minded in its devotion to the task of beating the goddess into nonexistence against the land she stewarded.

The golden light was guttering. Hylia's head was slammed into the ground, and the Malice burned at her face, her neck, her chest. The Calamity lifted her.

As she was lifted she summoned her sword to her hand. It hissed with golden flames. Ganon reared back to drive her into the earth once more. She thrust the point of the blade directly into the beast's face, right between its eyes.

Ganon did not even scream; it convulsed, and in its agony it hurled her across the firmament before clutching at the place where her weapon had struck home. It no longer seemed to notice the attacks of the Guardians. It no longer seemed to notice anything, save for its target.

Hylia landed on her feet. Light suffused the wounds on her face, repairing the body that hosted her, but the balance of the battle was wrong.

She was the goddess who presided over Hyrule, its guide from outside of time since before its naming. Long her vision, precise the events that her blood presaged. She wiped sunlight from her mouth and sent her sword away once more. She had known the course of the battle before ever it started; surely that was true. She was a god. She was _the_ god. Who would know, if not she?

So it must have been according to her design when she receded within herself, seeking that vast place where souls might meet.

* * *

He could not rise. The sword was in his hand. Her voice had died.

He had not been alone, moments before. Then the rhythm of sandals beating against the ground. Silence. The distant rumble of war.

He tried to rise. He had no strength. He tried to rise. He had no strength.

How long had he been like this?

Then: the sound of footsteps. Hard-soled boots.

He tried to rise.

* * *

Zelda awoke, regaining consciousness she had never expected to experience again.

She floated in the infinite dark, only it was not dark—before her was the sun, was every star that had ever shone in the sky. The vastness of Hylia was the light of all the universe, and beneath that there was a light more terrible still.

"You said we wouldn't speak again." A child's words, born from her delirium, but they were true.

Hylia's smile was bitter and laughing and sad and full of a thousand other emotions that Zelda could not know, the result of a life and perspective so long that everything the goddess felt had transformed into something different from what mortals knew. "I am sorry, my daughter. Consider that another of my failings."

The pain in Hylia's voice, the wound that lurked behind every word, grabbed hold of Zelda's soul and _shook her_ , and then she was awake, truly awake, and she came to full awareness with a blast of cold and fear.

She was before Hylia, yes—but it might be better to say that Hylia was before her. Through a trick of perspective she saw herself as vaster than the goddess, as if the universe had laid all its weight upon the shoulders of the divine and she had been crushed beneath its enormity. Hylia bled from a hundred wounds, and Zelda could not clearly see the divine face but she could see that the goddess had been burned, that the burn was spreading.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I fought as well as I am able," replied the source of all the power of the royal family. "It has been so long since I joined the war myself… I had almost forgotten. He—it—is so much worse than anything that preceded it. If we had fought it a century ago, then perhaps, but now…"

"I don't understand," Zelda said. Everything she thought she _had_ understood was unraveling, as if she had been told of the folly of gravity. "You—you are the goddess. Aren't you the guardian of the light? How can one creature's hatred be greater than you?

"Not hatred," Hylia said. "Ganon's is not the fiercest hatred that I have encountered. It is the Calamity's _hunger_ that drives it. Its desire. It will not be satisfied until its ambition has devoured the cosmos." Hylia closed her vast eyes, as if reflecting, and something in that expression made her look serene, almost child-like. Zelda had to fight the urge to take the goddess into her arms. "It is just like before. When the first Demon King's war ended, I could not defeat him. It fell to mortality. To the Hero. To a long-treasured plan."

"Do we have a plan?"

Without opening her eyes: "No. The plans I'd made had been for another contingency. Another possibility. What Ganon said—that it should have been us—is truer than it knows. If I continue to fight it, then Ganon will be triumphant."

The void was wide, and cold, and Zelda did not experience any sensation to break that impression. The universe seemed to recede even further from that infinite expanse. Oh, she was afraid, yes, but there was something worse than fear, wasn't there? She had never felt it, but she saw it in Hylia, as plainly as if she was looking through the goddess's eyes.

 _Ganon will win. And Link—everything he's done, everything he's suffered, all those_ years _, and he—it—_

Across distance bridged by a thread of the power she felt Paya's determination. Fear, yes, and resignation, but stronger than both of these was surety of action. That determination echoed in Zelda' heart.

 _It will not be for nothing._

"Then I will end this."

There, sorrow—again in the goddess's face, sorrow so deep it could drown the world. A smile, and Hylia offered her hands.

"That is the way of things."

* * *

The Guardians attacked and Ganon turned on them. Its mouth yawned, and from within the darkness of its chest shone a beam of light the color of blood. It swept that beam across the nearest Guardians, painting them with its power, and that color clung to them. They ceased to fire. They hissed.

Then the power exploded and the Guardians nearest to Ganon were shattered by a rising wall of fire that sank down into the earth and rose into the sky, burning away ancient armor like paper. The Guardians behind the first line fired through the devastation, but the curtain of Ganon's fury dulled their aim, their weapons, and from an entire quarter the attack effectively ceased.

Ganon swept its head toward the horizon, vomiting obliteration even as its body was rocked by the explosions of the Guardians' assault. A moment, a flash, and then the molten corpses of the affected Guardians disappeared in a burning aurora of hate and hunger and fury. By half the attack had been reduced, and the Guardians behind the front line scrambled away as the Malice spread toward them, reaching, pulling, not corrupting but eating. Those units that were caught by it were torn to shreds as if by a billion billion yawning mouths, and even the blue light lances of their fellows could not do more than hold the expanding power at bay.

Another sweep, another, and Ganon's power burned an impassable ring all around it, cutting off the Guardians from participating in the battle. The flyers sought to climb above the high walls, but that would take time. The conflict would end before they arrived.

Ganon panted—it had no lungs, but the exhaustion of its soul told in the simulacrum of its body. It tired, and its body should reflect that, and so its body did. That body was covered in burning cracks pried open by the power of Hylia, and Malice leaked from its joints, from its mouth, from its neck. It was not wounded so terribly as the goddess, but its body was wearing down.

Still. There was time. Time was _only_ the ally of Ganon, now. And the Guardians who couldn't fly blasted at the burning barrier of its power, and those who could fly climbed, too slow—

Roots exploded from the ground, roots that glowed green with insistent life, indefatigable life, and they wrapped themselves around the arms and legs and torso of the Calamity. Ganon's limbs were pulled down, taut, and it roared in confusion and frustration and then _recognition._

And then a call came from on high, in the voices of hundreds of children.

" _Miss Princess!_ " "We have to help Miss Princess!" "Hold it down! Hold it!" "Sing!"

The Koroks landed like apples falling from a mighty tree, and as soon as their stubby limbs touched the ground they whirled and shouted and danced. With sticks they traced patterns in the air, with leaves they formed dancing shield walls, and they sang and whirled and their song was a children's song, the anthem of those who had decided, once more, for the final time, to count themselves among the courageous.

Ganon bellowed its hate. Heaved against the roots, which seemed to tear from the earth before yanking the beast back in place again. Opened its mouth, where gathered a terrible light.

Far, far away, the oldest spirit in Hyrule wielded all the vastness of his power. It was everything he had; it was everything he would ever have. There was a wave of life, of _green_.

In Hyrule Field that green shone in the roots, and dug into Ganon's body, and the gathered light in its mouth was displaced by green. It howled its fury and struggled more fiercely against its restraints.

And the Koroks danced, and sang, and hoped.

* * *

Hylia said, "It has always fallen to our blood to defend the world against the hate that would end it. Not to me—never to me. This isn't a battle that can be won by gods. It never was."

Zelda understood that there was truth here, not just in the fact of the statement but in the investment, in the _confession_. The goddess was making herself vulnerable, sharing some deep secret, outlining the course of events that had dictated the rise and fall of the world since the dawn of time. And Zelda did not care.

"Then I will fight!"

"Daughter. Are you prepared to lose everything?"

She held out her hand. "I will lose everything anyway!"

"No, my Zelda. Even if you win, you will sacrifice a great deal. Seek within yourself. Do you feel your blood pulsing within you? Do you feel memory—not just yours, but the memory of your line?"

She had been asleep for so long that she had never turned that awareness inward, but she did not have to in order to realize, now, that the goddess spoke the truth. She remembered—not just the woman who had woken in the Chamber of Resurrection, nor even just the girl who had failed for years to gain the power of the gods, but _everything_. She recalled the lives and battles that had been the duty of her blood since before the founding of Hyrule. She remembered every life that had blossomed inside of her when she stood in the Lost Woods surrounded by the souls of the Heroes—every princess. Every queen. Her ancestors. Her mother.

She quailed. Despite herself, despite her determination, she quailed. She contained a vastness beyond multitudes. Knowledge on a scale that no other person, even the gods, had ever possessed. Ancestral awareness dating back to the first kingdom, to the old kingdom, to before the cataclysm that had spewed demons out of the earth. In that moment she understood how the Guardians worked; she understood the course of the stars in the sky; she saw the course of nations; she knew the loves and sorrows and hearts of every woman who had preceded her.

 _All of this. All of this is inside of me. I have to risk this?_

"Are you ready to sacrifice the past—to sacrifice your connection to your foremothers—for a thin, ragged hope?"

Before, she would have said yes without hesitation. She would have screamed it, would have stamped out her surety on the ground. But now—now—

She heard children singing. Felt green rushing beneath her feet.

 _The Koroks are holding back Ganon._

 _I have to stop this._

 _No matter what I lose. No matter what we all lose. I have to stop this._

Within her, her foremothers—her mother—murmured their assent. Voices uncounted, calling together: _yes._

Zelda held out her hand to the goddess. "I am ready. _We are all ready!_ "

Hylia did not answer. She closed her eyes, spread her arms, and waited.

Zelda dove into the goddess's embrace.

* * *

The ancient power's strength ran thin. Ganon heaved with its body, tearing itself free of the roots that had constrained it.

The Koroks' singing turned to panicked shouts as their magic failed, and they scrambled away from the Calamity in every direction. "Run!" "It's coming!" "Hurry, hurry!" They sailed into the air, carried by the wind and by the leaves in their hands, soaring up like birds in flight.

But not all escaped so cleanly.

One—their face a maple leaf—tripped in their panic and fell. They scrambled, could not right themselves.

A second stood over them, leaf in one hand, stick in the other, as if holding a sword and shield. This one knew that it wouldn't work—but ideas mattered. Maybe the idea would be enough.

It spoke to the Calamity's fury, its hate, that when it tore itself completely free and the burning roots were brushed from its body, that it saw those two Koroks and, instead of lunging for the goddess, it stalked toward them. Malice wreathed its hands in flames as it crooked its fingers into claws.

The first Korok struggled upright, and the second stood stolidly between their companion and the death that reached for both.

" ** _GANON!_** "

Not Hylia's voice. Zelda's. Then a light, golden, that spread across the field like a wildfire, and the Calamity turned to face it. The Koroks retreated together, one clinging to the other's body.

And then the Calamity saw, and for the first time in ten thousand years and more it was stilled.

Zelda stood before it, the light resplendent under her skin, the power stirring her hair like a wind. Beside her stood another woman, much her image, though older. And next to her another, older still. And behind her more. And more. And more.

A pirate captain who had become a pirate queen. A princess who had given herself to shadow to protect the light. A woman who had sent her heart into the past, to right a terrible wrong. A girl who had dreamed of a hero and seen the artistry of courage. A diplomat who had sought to protect the scions of the gods from the reach of evil. An orphan who had wrested back control of her own body from an ancient grudge. And more. _And more_ , on back through history, back to the one who had walked with the first Hero in the days when legends were written _._

They stood arranged in their hundreds, in their _thousands_ , every generation who had ever carried the blood of the goddess, and in their skin there was gold, in their hands were swords and knives and bows, and in their eyes was a single, terrible, focused _purpose_.

Zelda stood at their front, and when she looked at Ganon it took a step back from her.

She held out her hand, gesturing at the ancient enemy of her family.

"Together," she said.

The explosion of golden light blew apart the barrier of Ganon's power and sent the Calamity reeling. Then they were upon it, all of them, together—save one.

A pirate queen's cutlass cut open the armor of its stomach. The Calamity swung, and its arm was caught by an armored figure even larger than itself whose eyes burned with pink fire. The princess who had drifted in twilight drove her thin, straight blade directly into its throat. Ganon reached, and its grasp was rebuked, its fingers shattered by the Sheikah-trained hands of one who had fought against a terrible power across the streams of time. It recoiled, and the progenitor laid hands on it, burning it with an echo of the goddess she had once been. It screamed, and a mother who had died before she could teach her beloved daughter the secret of their blood smashed it into the earth with the weight of gold and long-withheld rage.

From every direction, by thousands of hands, it was dissembled. There was no darkness to stand up to the radiance of that light; there was no evil that would protect Ganon from their righteousness. Every blow was a chip in its armor, a spurt of Malice and fire and blood and pain, and slowly it began to unravel. To shatter. Its armor flaked and then chipped and then broke, revealing the burning Malice that was inside of it, and the illusion of its humanity was lost as the storm fought more and more desperately to hold itself together.

Zelda now stood at the rear. There was a weapon that had been carried by her family since the age when they had openly held the True Force, a weapon forged from the radiance of the very engine of creation. She reached within herself, seeking it. When she found it, its familiarity—its warmth—steadied the tremble in her body. She had thought she was comfortable holding a sword, but only because she had never found the weapon her hands had been made for.

Zelda drew taut the Bow of Light. An arrow of incomparable radiance, brighter than the light of the gods, hummed with promise between her fingers.

Ganon screamed its indignation, and its armor fell away.

Zelda let fly.

The arrow of light struck Ganon's heart.

* * *

The gathered thousands, the princesses who carried the blood of the goddess, looked on as the Calamity's scream became an ear-splitting howl of incomparable pain. None of them missed that, beneath that pain, there was still anger. Still hunger.

Light shone from within Ganon's body, shafts of radiance bursting from inside of it like the fingers of dawn. It howled, and writhed, and its body seemed to bubble, to heave. It threw its head back. And then it exploded, in light and fire and Malice and a great rushing wind.

Malice spewed outward in geysers that rose into the air, flaming and boiling as if the fluid hate itself was in agony. Ganon's body dissolved utterly into noxious purples and reds, and those swirled together, and quivered as if their edges were growing frailer. They hovered on the edge of oblivion.

And then Ganon clawed its way back.

The cloud shifted, and its head rose from within the storm, the nightmare parody of a boar's expression. It bellowed at the gathered legacy of the royal family, and they stared up at it with calm eyes as they regathered around the one living princess.

Ganon reared back, and the storm pulled into itself. It grew darker as purple lightning screamed across its surface, as a burning rain of red fell beneath it. The cloud swelled, growing thicker and darker and thicker and darker until it was more real, more solid, than the ground it hovered over.

Then the cloud fell to the earth, and the impact of its landing would have toppled Hyrule Castle, had Hyrule Castle still stood. There was a shifting, a _yawning_ , and from that enormous cloud sprang four legs terminating in cloven hooves. The storm resolved into a body far larger than any single Divine Beast, thickly muscled on a scale that would have been absurd on a terrestrial creature. When the head pushed its way out from between the heavy shoulders, when the golden eyes opened and the mouth split to show colossal teeth aflame with destructive power, there was an almost familiar air to it.

Deny Ganon its body, and it mattered not. It abandoned such pretences. It took its true shape; its body was hate, its heart was desire. It was the grudge of thousands of generations, seeking, always seeking to satiate a bottomless hunger.

The Dark Beast roared, and the light of the royal family was small before it.

* * *

Hard-soled boots. Footsteps stopping.

He tried to rise.

He had no strength. The sword was broken in his hand.

A presence by him. More than one. Many. He couldn't tell. Couldn't open his eyes.

He heaved against the weight of his body, against the weight of the mountain that had been placed on his limbs, against reality, against pain, against death. He was so tired, and he heaved against that too. Did it shift? Did it budge, even one inch? He couldn't do it. He couldn't. It was over. Why had he been fighting at all? How much had he forgotten? What was he forgetting?

He tried to rise.


	51. Wish

The Dark Beast Ganon's body shuddered, barely containing the vastness of its power. The day darkened to night above it, as if the sun were dying. Every step it took was an earthquake, its tread heavier than any of the Divine Beasts. When it screamed at the heavens, the sound it produced wasn't even recognizable as a roar: it was too deep, too loud, too explosive, and sent out physical shockwaves that flattened the grass for kilometers around. It was like being near a volcano as it erupted.

The gathered multitudes of the blood of the royal family were a crowd before the beast, and the light they gave off did not waver, but Ganon's hate was more towering by far. Its howl ended and the Calamity lowered its head, staring at the blood of the goddess with golden eyes much, much larger than a person.

Zelda stood at their head again, the Bow of Light still in her hands. She watched calmly as the Calamity reconstituted itself. A knowledge deeper and wider than a single person could contain spoke perspective in her ear: though this was particularly terrible, as Ganon's forms went, it was not _new_. Not really. It was more of a logical conclusion of the arc that Ganon had started in the distant past. Threatening, yes. Destructive, certainly. If it was not stopped here, then it would shake the entire world to ruin, making the events of a hundred years ago seem small in comparison. But it was not new. It was not beyond her understanding.

She felt very little fear.

Ganon exhaled, and she was buffeted by the gale of its breath, hot and acrid and smelling of Malice. Her skin burned; if not for the protection of Hylia's power—her family's power—she most likely would have been suffering much more than a general irritation. Its very body was corrosive. It ate at the world simply by existing.

Its eyes picked her out of the crowd. Oh, yes, it could see her. Could see as she glared back at it. Let it see, then. Let it see that breaking a projection or leaving discarded weapons on ruined ground was not the same thing as breaking the indomitable spirit of the courageous.

She reached out with her thoughts. Distance was nothing; it was so easy, now, to reach across the plains of Hyrule, to the Necluda range and to Death Mountain and the cliffs of the Gerudo Desert and the southern end of the Hebra snowfields. To touch the hearts that waited there, that had been waiting for so very, _very_ long. To speak the single word:

"Now."

* * *

Daruk laughed from atop Death Mountain, slapping his broad stomach as Vah Rudania's targeting laser settled on Ganon's flank. It wasn't much of an adjustment, was it? And really, who could miss a target that big in the first place? The ghost fires danced around him, echoing his mirth.

 _Now._

He thought of Link, and Zelda, and Paya, and Yunobo. Of a land that was not plagued by Calamity. Of a land where children could grow safely, and strong, without living in the shadow of their parents' failures.

"Hold on, everybody," he said. "Help is on the way." He spread his feet, lowered his arms to his sides, breathed deep though he didn't need to breathe. Opened his eyes. Grinned. Thrust forward his fists. "Open wide, Ganon!"

* * *

Urbosa did not laugh atop Vah Naboris; her eyes remained locked not on Ganon, but on the distant glow that was spread before the beast. She could not reach that far, though in that moment she might have.

"Are you with her now, I wonder? Fighting with her? Watching over her?" She let herself sigh; no one was watching. "Of course you are. I suspect you have been all along. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect her in your place. I'm sorry for so much."

 _Now._

She smiled her destroyer's smile.

"Well, we'll talk it out soon. I'll be with you as soon as I've had vengeance… for both of us."

She held her hand up. Snapped her fingers.

* * *

Revali took no time for sentimental reflection; he still smarted from how firmly Ganon had struck his physical projection. It wasn't as bad as dying had been, of course, and even if it _were_ he could have easily withstood it, but it _rankled._ Not enough to have died at some ancient, mindless monstrosity's hands, but to have participated in a battle simply to buy time for a too-important girl to remember things she should have never forgotten? That was almost arbitrarily inglorious.

So really, he just wanted to fire, to lay pain on Ganon equal to what Ganon had laid on him. He knew it had to be simultaneous. He _certainly_ wouldn't be the one to fire out of order. But it worried him. If he was so tempted, how much must the other Champions have been? Not everyone was so patient, so doggedly reliable, as himself.

 _Now._

Ah, there, see? Patience rewarded. He didn't have to adjust Vah Medoh; his aim, of course, was perfect.

He said nothing. Artistry, after all, spoke for itself.

He held out one wing.

* * *

Mipha had stood a lonely vigil for a hundred years, even bound, eyes always turned toward Hyrule Castle. Freedom had not changed that vigil. Not even the battle itself had done so. She was always free with her tears; she was free with them now, too.

She had felt it, three days after forcing the Calamity back into Hyrule Castle, when Link's heart had stopped. She had not screamed; he had kept fighting past that point, never faltering, never missing a beat in the rhythm of his battle, as if he hadn't even noticed. That was when her imprisonment had truly become her vigil, and ever since, she had not lifted her eyes from him. As his body had worn away, she watched. As his soul fought on and forgot the heartbreak that would drag him into true oblivion, she watched. As his battle had ended, still she watched.

And she watched him now as his connection to the world grew thinner and thinner. If she had been there with him, all of her healing magic would have been useless; even if Zelda had leveraged it, Hylia's power through the language of Mipha's could not have restored his body. He would still have slipped closer and closer to true death with every moment.

"Please," she said to him, even though he could not hear. "Please get up. We still need you. Please. I've broken so many promises, we've all broken so many promises—please let us help you. Please be all right. Please."

She watched. He did not rise.

"Please. You promised."

 _Now._

She drew herself up. Turned her eyes, for the first time in a long time, toward Ganon.

"If I can keep no other promise to you, then I will keep this one: _we will not fail!_ "

She thrust out her hands.

* * *

The Dark Beast inhaled, and locks of Zelda's hair were pulled forward by the wind, though she remained anchored. It did not _gather_ power, as before; it stoked the power within its own chest, breathing terrible life into the devastation that suffused every fiber of its being. Its chest glowed with a smothered red-and-purple light, and that light slowly crawled its way up the Calamity's throat. Its inhalation ceased, and the power built to a perfect crescendo just as the darkness of the night air around it lightened to the color of morning, to noon, and then to a blinding white inferno. It tilted its head, as if in recognition.

Four burning pillars of blinding light smashed into Ganon from four directions, and the sound of the impact was high and electrical, and beneath that there was _burning_.

The weapons of the Divine Beasts had been created to suppress the power of the Calamity, and within their field of effect the Malice hissed, _boiled_ , dissolved into evil smoke that twisted and faded to nothing. The Dark Beast staggered, enveloped in the radiance, and sank down to the earth as its strength failed it.

Its burning, golden eyes were focused on Zelda, and she met its gaze. The beam splitting the air above the crowd should have obscured its face completely, but the faintest outline of its head was visible through the brilliance and its eyes shone as plainly as if they stared through empty air. Through the light and the burning and the high electric roar and the force driving it into the ground, its attention never wavered.

It collapsed, and the earth trembled, and the weapons of the Divine Beast kept pouring on.

* * *

Ganon towered over everything. _Everything._ Paya tried not to focus on it as she ran. She focused on her breathing. She could run for a very long time, but Hylia had moved the site of the battle by kilometers and that was a _very_ long way to sprint.

That wouldn't stop her. Nothing would stop her.

* * *

He tried to rise.

"My child," a voice said. Not his father's voice, or his mother's. Unfamiliar. Strange. But comforting, somehow. A voice born to command, tempered by real tenderness. Raspy, as if it hadn't been used in many years.

He couldn't flex his left hand, either to open it or to close it. His right hand was locked; he couldn't tighten his grip and dared not try to open it for fear that he would succeed and be unable to hold the sword again.

"You have fought for so long."

He tried to rise.

* * *

The weapons were spent, the mighty beams of light dwindling until they were gossamer strands and then vanishing. The Divine Beasts retracted their firing mechanisms, entering into a long recharge state. The wind blew across Hyrule Field, and tufts of uprooted grass danced in front of Zelda's face.

She knew that Ganon could not be defeated in this way, especially not in its current form. The Divine Beasts were designed to drain it, not to kill it.

 _Only the Sword is designed to kill it._ She shoved the intrusive thought away. Looked up at Ganon, at the enormous golden eyes that had fallen closed as it lay upon the ground. It lived still, yes, or else it would not have retained this body. Still. Standing amidst the spirits of her foremothers ( _and Mother is here and I have so much that I could ask her, I want so desperately to speak to her that I would kill Ganon just to have the opportunity_ ) she allowed herself to hope that killing Ganon would be simple, now. It was easy to believe.

Then its eyes opened. It was no longer looking at her.

It shoved itself to its feet, and smoke rose from all over its body where the Divine Beasts' assault had battered it, but the light in its chest and its throat had not dimmed at all. It was facing to the east when it opened its mouth and sounded the clarion call to end the world.

The beam of purple-and-white light that shone from its mouth was narrower than the blasts of the Divine Beasts, but Zelda understood that it was no less destructive—in fact, as was made clear in the next moment, it was much worse.

Mipha had moved Vah Ruta away from Zora's Domain partially for a better targeting vector and partially so any attack on the Divine Beast would endanger neither the Domain nor the reservoir. It was this fact and this fact alone that protected Hyrule from its end.

The beam struck Vah Ruta, and Zelda saw as the castle-sized machine was rocked by a series of explosions along the length of its body. The initial impact severed its trunk, which gout flames as it fell to the earth. Its left ear shattered with an eruption of blue fire, sending a hail of shrapnel to the south as its sides erupted outward in geysers of purple and blue flames. The Divine Beast staggered, its roar high and pained, and then the motivators controlling its legs cracked on the left side and Vah Ruta fell to the earth, burning.

Zelda and all of her mothers tore her eyes from the carnage to look back at Ganon, which still did not look at them. It was turning to the north. To Vah Rudania. To Death Mountain. The earth shook, not from its tread but from the gathering of its power, and the light inside of its chest threw a terrible purple radiance on the ground beneath it.

Thousands of voices held parliament within her and around her. It should have been cacophony, but it was not; each woman of her blood heard her mothers and daughters and sisters, and each was heard in her turn, though it was simultaneous. Among them all, Zelda's voice was loudest, most insistent.

 _If it fires on Death Mountain then Death Mountain will erupt. Daruk is already positioned at the top of the crater; any attempt to retreat will bring the attack closer to the volcano's magma chamber._

 _Vah Naboris is positioned in a neutral space, like Ruta was. Medoh isn't. Revali has to take it away, has to fly._

 _If Ganon fires on Vah Rudania then it won't matter._

Every woman there spoke together: _Do not let it. Give it another target._

Zelda agreed. She lifted the Bow of Light, drew taut the string, and traced the wide course of Ganon's turning. Its head was so vast that it was difficult to judge distance or speed. She had no choice but to feel it.

A thousand lifetimes and more guided her aim. Princesses and queens laid their hands on hers. She felt her mother's arms around her.

She fired. The arrow soared, its trajectory perfectly straight. The dark beast turned directly into its path.

Ganon bellowed its fury as the light arrow struck its right eye.

" _GANON!_ " she called in uncountable voices. " _FACE ME!_ "

The burning pupil of that golden eye bled as it homed in on her, and the force of its hate was a physical blow that stirred the dust beneath her feet. Its tread was halted, and the earth shook as it shifted its weight. It reversed its turn, bringing itself around to face the gathered blood of the goddess.

With the goddess's knowledge and the perspective of her ancestors Zelda understood what she could not alone: Ganon's evil was a self-contained totality, perfect in a way that could not be encapsulated by physical description. An attack from without would, alone, be useless. She could fling Ganon into the very heart of the sun and it would eat the star unless some weakness was written into its body first.

 _We have to write that weakness into it_ , her mothers told her.

Would that work? If she had been the one fighting Ganon for a century, then—yes. Yes, the shape of it was clear to her. Disembodied, she might be able to craft the weaknesses that Ganon itself didn't possess, creating vulnerabilities where the light would be able to penetrate—and, when the light within Ganon matched the light without, it would be destroyed.

 _I am not within Ganon._

 _You do not have to be. Distance is nothing._

 _The power that it would take to do that—we would need to be able to strike its body seven times to completely open its weakness._

There was a moment of silence, as if the voices of her ancestors were conferring without letting her hear. That frightened her in a way she had never been frightened before.

Finally, her foremothers spoke to her: _Use more than you think. Use it all. Take advantage of the Divine Beasts' assault. Reduce the requirement to one strike._

She tried to resist the idea, understanding what it would cost her, but unbidden her mind with Hylia's perspective was already sketching out the arcane formula necessary. The shapes of power that would be traced inside of the storm, the radiance unleashed at specific angles to part the dark toward the wounds of the four cardinal directions of its body, and one last target… it would work. It would work.

"I don't want to lose you," she said aloud as Ganon faced them all.

 _We will always be with you._ Not many voices. Just one. Her mother's.

The light in Ganon's throat reached the apex of its radiance and Zelda drew taut the Bow of Light. She closed her eyes, willed her power into the arrow. More, and more, until she was left with dregs, until her connection to her ancestors was a frail and unlikely thing, until she could feel Paya more clearly than she felt her own mother, and all of that power she shaped into the arcane forms that would write out the law of her enormous purpose. The crowd around her faded and vanished, the energies that allowed them to manifest now invested elsewhere. The light of that arrow was the very light of Hylia, and the world was divided into brightness and darkness by the two powers on that field.

Ganon opened its mouth, screaming the end, and Zelda loosed the arrow.

The arrow struck the ray of Ganon's power—and punctured it, punching through it as if it weren't there, shattering it like glass. The arrow flew unimpeded, making no sound as it soared through the air and then disappeared down Ganon's throat.

The Calamity closed its mouth. Looked to Zelda, who now stood alone in the field. She stared back. It made a sound, almost inquisitive. A sun blossomed in its abdomen.

Then the power exploded.

Magic circles of golden light connected by glowing chains sprouted all over Ganon's body and then erupted into burning pillars of plasma, and Ganon's roar became a choked scream as holy power rocked its entire body. It did not fall; Ganon would never allow itself to fall in the critical moment. It attacked, spewing death from its mouth, but its legs gave out and it poured death directly into the ground.

That destruction spread through the earth, and the spreading heat created an enormous updraft. Zelda unfurled her paraglider, and the wind lifted her. She soared up, up, higher than the castle, higher than the Calamity, and she saw as the Dark Beast's body was split open by the power she had unleashed inside of it. Its back opened along the line of its spine, and inside of it there bristled a field of glowing, staring, hateful eyes, all focused on her.

There. The seat of Ganon. The very heart of its awareness, hidden by the storm, shielded by the body of the Dark Beast.

She folded her paraglider, and as she began to fall she drew the Bow of Light. Pulled taut the string. Aimed directly into the cluster of eyes that glared at her for her defiance.

She loosed the arrow, and unfurled her paraglider again just as it struck home.

* * *

"You have fought longer than any of us. Than all of us. You have earned your rest."

He did not know the voice; he did not care what it was saying. He tried to move and couldn't, couldn't command even the least part of himself. When he had been very young, he had had dreams in which he could feel his body but was trapped within it, unable even to breathe by his own command; this was like that.

"But you cannot rest yet."

* * *

The sea of eyes within Ganon boiled and then exploded. Malice and fire ejected into the atmosphere in every direction as the Dark Beast's body burned and dissolved. It tried to stay standing and failed, its legs giving out under it even as it tried desperately to regain its footing.

Zelda landed in front of it.

Ganon collapsed in full, staring at her, unblinking, uncomprehending.

Zelda reached within herself.

Ganon's body dissolved, flesh once more becoming the burning cloud of the storm of the Malice, and the Calamity swirled in the air as a formless hatred.

There were two powers that Zelda carried: the power of her blood, the power that had founded Hyrule, the power that she had used in her battle with Ganon, was the power that Ganon so hated. It had prevailed against the Blights, and against the Yiga, and with the help of every ally she could gather it had prevailed against Ganon itself. But it was the lesser power by far. She reached now for the strength she had kept hidden beneath her own amnesia, which Hylia had only whispered of, which her blood had guarded for so long against a world that might misuse it. Against Ganon.

The very engine of creation was hers to call upon, only in the final moment. The moment had arrived. She lay her hands on the power of gold, and the cosmos shifted, sitting up in anticipation of the heart that would soon command it.

She touched it, and that power manifested in the world: three golden triangles, arranged to form a single, larger one, standing proudly half a meter above the grass. The world was quieted as its keystone was made real for the first time in ten thousand years.

Zelda realized too late her mistake.

Only for the final moment; only when Ganon had been utterly defeated; not one instant before. That was when the goddess had told her to unleash the true force. That was the point she believed she had reached.

But Ganon was not done. The massive boar's head split, and the silhouette of a man built of Malice careened from the maelstrom. Its hands reached.

She was between Ganon and the golden power. She would not reach it before the beast, though she need travel only a tenth as far. She turned.

The Calamity slammed into her. She grappled with it, using all the power that remained to her. It was so little. So _thin_. Ganon hissed and writhed and roared in her grip, and the Malice of its skin burned at hers.

 _Not like this. Please. Please._

She was praying to no one. Hylia could not help her; all of the goddess's strength had been used up destroying the Dark Beast's body. Her foremothers could not help her; she did not have enough energy left to hear their voices, much less call upon them for help. The dragons were still unconscious; the remaining Divine Beasts were still recharging; she couldn't help the Champions manifest now; the Koroks had fled.

There was just her. Just her, and Ganon, and her arms wrapped around it, holding it as it fought against her, and she had brought it down to the lowest point in its existence but its eyes burned in its face and it didn't seem to even notice her, only reached for the thing behind her.

The power in her guttered, and Ganon forced her back a step. She screamed in panic, scraping against the interior of her soul for all the strength that remained to her, and flared momentarily, stopping the beast's progress. It heaved, and she knew that she couldn't hold it.

 _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've failed you all. I—_

Behind Zelda there was a sound, one she had never heard before, as far removed from a bell as a dragon's voice was from a human's. The Calamity ceased to struggle in her arms, and instead screamed in anger and outrage. Zelda dared to look over her shoulder.

And Paya looked back at her. The Sheikah's left hand rested on the Triforce.

* * *

"You think that you are broken because the beast has destroyed the sword. Because you cannot hear her voice, calling you on to battle."

The words washed over him, and he did not process them at all. He was sinking deeper. The dark pulled at him. It would be so easy to rest, wouldn't it? To stop struggling.

"But the sword is not the soul of the Hero, Link. It never has been. Since the goddess put her blessing on it, since it was forged in celestial fire, the Hero's soul has always invested the sword with its courage. You are not strengthened by the Master Sword; it draws its strength from you."

He had been fighting. He had been fighting for so long. He was finished, now. Wasn't he? He must have been. He couldn't remember what he'd been fighting.

He couldn't remember why.

* * *

Ganon howled in outrage as Zelda held it back. Paya's princess looked so small, then, penning in the Calamity with arms that could barely encircle its waist, and the light of her power was nearly out.

The secret power had been forgotten by the rest of the world many thousands of years ago, to protect the royal family and every other living thing from its misuse. Hyrule had forgotten; the Zora, the Gerudo, the Hylians, the Gorons, the Rito, even the Yiga, had all forgotten. But the Sheikah remembered. The Sheikah, first servants of the steward of the Triforce, had long kept the secret.

The golden power would grant any wish to the one who touched it.

It was smooth and warm under her hands, its surface humming like a living thing, with no texture that she could discern. She felt its promise, unspoken. It beckoned her heart to wish. She closed her eyes.

 _Save Zelda. Destroy Ganon._

She felt the leylines of the universe glowing beneath her feet. Her wish manifested.

Ganon screamed.

She opened her eyes.

The beast writhed in Zelda's arms, and golden lines of power glowed on its body. That gold spread like cracks in the frame of the Malice, fissures that would bring perfect obliteration, and they spread, and spread, and—

And they stopped.

And as Paya watched, as Zelda's power guttered once more, the Malice ate the gold, and Ganon's power exploded around it like a flare.

 _No. That's impossible! Did my wish not register? What did I do wrong? I—_

"The stronger the heart that makes the wish," Ganon said, and its voice came up from within the earth and it was looking at her, not at Zelda or even at the Triforce but at _her_ , "the mightier the _expression_ of that wish. And your heart—" It stopped, shrieking with laughter. " _Your heart cannot destroy me! No one can!_ "

The air around her ripped as if the world was being torn asunder. She looked up. The ghost fires were burning.

Mipha's hand was laid on hers. Then Urbosa's. Revali's wing. And Daruk's palm covered them all.

"Champions!" Her own voice, rallying the dead.

They five stood together, the living Champion and her predecessors, and the Triforce flared with the strength of their hearts. Together, they wished:

 _Destroy Ganon._

A flash of light. A flare of brilliance. Ganon's scream, etched out in golden lines of power across its skin.

And then its laughter. The burning of its power.

* * *

"You have to get up. One last time, my child, you have to fight."

There was nothing left of him; there had never been anything of him. He was dead, he realized; he had spent so long trying _not_ to realize that. Now that the truth was on him, it was comforting.

"Link."

Was that so wrong? To accept death? Was that not the privilege of the dead, even to those who denied the dying? He had fought. Hadn't he fought? He had fought. He had fought for someone. He was forgetting. Why was he trying so desperately not to forget? Why was she so sad? Who was it that he felt across time, as if he had never been parted from her?

"Zelda needs you."

 _Zelda._

He opened his eyes.

* * *

Behind her the Triforce rang and within her the power was going out and there was nothing left of her and every second, _every second_ Ganon was growing stronger. She had reduced him from a nation-devouring inferno to the barest cinders, and now those cinders were regaining their ferocity with every passing moment. She would lose.

The Champions—and some remote, quiet part of her was so happy that Paya was counted in that number—wished. And their wish was not enough. No one's wish could be. It was impossible. There was nothing they could do, unless the cinders went out.

She was holding back the Calamity, but when it took a step forward she couldn't forestall its progress. She pushed back with all of her strength, but now that strength was almost entirely physical. It took another step. It thundered laughter as she shoved back against it, forcing it back a step. She was counting down the seconds until the end of everything.

Another wish behind her. Another wave poured into Ganon. It staggered back another step, but it no longer voiced its pain.

 _If they wished for my strength to return, that would not be enough either. By some trick Ganon would gain advantage. I don't know how, but I know that it would. Could they wish to destroy the Triforce? Would that be any different, leaving us without the means to kill the Calamity?_

She could never have won this. It had been impossible from the start.

How many moments did she have left? How many moments did the world have left?

She should have been exhausted; she should have felt nothing; she should have been courageous; she was none of these things. She could not even feel shame as tears of frustration and anger and fear ran down her face, as she heaved and tried to use leverage against her opponent.

 _I will die fighting. We will all die fighting. Let that be enough. Let that—_

Thunder.

" _Zelda!_ "

She was sixteen years old and riding through the forests of Akkala. A bokoblin with a crude wooden bow had come roaring out of the woods, frightening her horse. She saw it drawing the arrow as a figure moved in front of it, shield ready. He called to her.

" _Get down!_ "

Zelda let go of Ganon and threw herself to the ground.

Thunder crashed above her, a single bark. Ganon's outraged howl was cut off.

She lifted her head and saw a ribbon of light tracing an arc through the air, an arc that passed through the Calamity's throat. Ganon was clutching at its neck as Malice and flame spouted from between its fingers, and at the end of the ribbon of light was a man whose body was like looking into a field of stars.

Link was a blue flame that burned as insistently as the light of the gods, his soul tinged in flecks of cerulean and red and green and gold, the same colors that swirled over the blade he held in his hands. That sword, Zelda saw, was broken—but where the shattered blade had once been there burned a fire, an extension of Link's spirit.

Ganon took one step and then Link was on it, and the song the Master Sword sang rang out in high, clear notes, the roar of its power a percussive undertone as it cleaved apart the deepest darkness in the universe. Ganon staggered again, tried to fight, and it was rebuked instantly, its arms cloven from its shoulders. New arms exploded from the stumps, flaming, and these held swords, and with desperation and fury did the Calamity meet the Hero in open combat. It was not fast enough. A slash across its face sent it reeling backward.

As it stumbled Link looked over his shoulder and shouted to her, " _Go!_ "

She ran. She didn't feel herself rising but she was running. A flash of silver. The Triforce was shining in front of her. And behind her was Ganon.

And.

And—

* * *

The vastness of that dark place where souls communed was more pronounced, now. Something in it had grown more profound. Darker, even. Perhaps it was that her power had gone out. Perhaps it was that the Triforce was no longer resting there.

"But if my power is gone, then how did I come here again?"

"Zelda?"

Her heart froze. Her mind, too. It was only by the grace of her feet, turning of their own accord, that she was made to look at what had been behind her.

And, on the other end of the void, she saw Link.

"Oh," she said.

He said nothing. Looked about himself, as if curious. He wasn't—he wasn't alive, exactly. But she saw him as if he had been. Maybe it was her memory filling in the gaps, making it so easy to see the cool blue of his eyes, the crease of concern in his brow, the way that he held himself so that he seemed so large in spite of being even shorter than she was. This was the first time she'd seen him since she had died. He looked so much the same, as if he hadn't—as if the past hundred years—

She would not let herself cry, but she held one hand over her mouth for a moment and took a long steadying breath through her nose.

When she lowered it, she said: "I'm so sorry."

He looked at her again, and now his forehead was smoothed. He was listening. He returned so easily to that role.

"I laid all of this on you. I… I used you as a shield against the Calamity. I _used_ you, to buy time for my return. You've suffered so much, I—"

He held up his hand. She stopped herself.

"I can't remember everything," Link said. "I… actually remember very little. But Ganon is here. And you were fighting it."

"Y-yes."

He didn't seem to have anything to say. He wasn't very eloquent at even the best of times, and now was not the best of times. Finally: "Thank you for coming for me."

"Link…"

"I don't remember clearly, but… I knew you would come. I've been able to fight this whole time because I knew you would. That if I could hold on just a _little_ longer, then you would have the time you needed. To recover. To gather your strength."

 _For a hundred years. 'Just a little longer,' over and over, for a hundred years._ The idea was enough to drive her into the earth.

"And here you are. You… allowed me to keep my promise. Thank you."

He was so perfectly happy when he said that that the happiness crashed into her, and that was more than she could take. She felt herself buckling. "Please don't thank me. Please. Anything else. Hate me, hold me to account for setting you on this terrible path, haunt me until I join you in death, but… not this. Not this…"

"I said we would see this through to the end together," he said. His expression betrayed nothing, but his voice spoke his hope, his devotion, his loyalty. To the task. To the kingdom. To her. "Now we will. If I can see you safe… if I can see you looking out over a world free of Ganon… then I will have no regrets."

She had to fight for the words. "How can you promise such things? How can you suffer as you have, and then be willing to suffer all over again?" _How can you expect me to continue without you?_ "How can you do it?"

At the last question, he smiled.

"For you," he said.

His hands flexed, as if gripping a sword that wasn't there. A shape manifested beside him: a young woman with metallic skin, whose steel-like hair fell down to her shoulders and beyond to form a protective mantle. There was a horizontal fracture along her diaphragm, which glowed with the same blue-star glow as Link's soul. Fi hovered over him like a protective shadow in that vast place, and her eyes met Zelda's, and something in those eyes was achingly familiar.

Link turned back to his war. Fi followed him.

The darkness fell away.

* * *

The Master Sword roared as steel clashed on steel and Paya ran past her at full tilt and Zelda scrambled toward the Triforce. She felt Paya's determination, like iron turned to steel, through the thin link that ran between them.

There was no strength left in her legs. She stumbled as she ran, tried desperately not to fall, and had to scramble at the ground with her hands so that she stayed even halfway upright.

Ganon bellowed behind her. The Master Sword was still singing the song of the Hero, and the sound of it clashing with Ganon's swords and Ganon's flesh drowned out the Calamity's voice.

 _Like water,_ Paya's voice echoed in her mind, and she knew that her attendant had joined the fight.

She looked back. Just for an instant.

Ganon's left arm was missing, its right raised to strike from on high. Its eyes were huge and wild and she realized that besides its eyes it didn't really have a face, just the outline of one, like its body was the outline of a man's. Link was in front of it, the glittering arc of the Master Sword carving canyons into Ganon's torso, and Paya was beside him, her right fist striking a blow against the Calamity's throat, fighting with her bare hands against the end of the world.

Zelda looked away, and she was running.

Paya's breathing was in her ear and she could hear Link's exhalations with every blow and Ganon bellowed and steel hacked into bare, open flesh. The Triforce loomed in front of her but it never seemed to draw closer, as if the act of running wasn't real.

 _He died for me. She'll die for me, too._

 _I can't let this be for nothing. I can't._

The gold was before her.

She reached out, taking her connection with Paya, the last shred of her power in the world. She was alone in her mind, but she had the golden thread in her hand, like a spark. She fanned it into a conflagration. Poured herself into it. Called out to the parliament.

Link was behind her. Paya was behind her. Ganon was behind her, reaching, screaming, hungering.

Zelda's vision darkened as she reached out. She laid her hand on the Triforce. She felt all the legacy of her blood funneled down to this moment, to this one act.

With the strength of uncounted hearts, she wished.

* * *

Link drove the Master Sword into Ganon's chest.

There was a light where Zelda's hand touched the Triforce.

It started out as a tiny thing—the barest spark, almost invisible to the eye. But it grew. In a span of time that ran between instants, it grew. A sphere of light that went from a speck to the size of Zelda's hand to the size of a person, enveloping her, enveloping the Triforce, and expanding beyond it.

Ganon exploded. The conflagration born of it became the storm, and the storm bellowed. The light kept growing, and the storm was pulled toward it. The Calamity reeled toward the sky, but the light grew more quickly, and Ganon was drawn into it. It roared, it fought, and still it was pulled in. Its golden eyes looked out from within the radiance, which swallowed them.

The light shrank. Collapsed. Everything it had touched was left as it had been, save Ganon.

The orb shrank, and shrank, and shrank, and as it shrank it was filled with swirling light and dark. The power of the Triforce contracted, becoming an infinitesimal point—and then it vanished.

Ganon was gone.

The Triforce was gone.

The wind blew gently over Hyrule Field.

* * *

 _It is so quiet. Why am I noticing that it is so quiet?_

It was more than just an absence of noise; yes, things had been loud before, but that was not the sort of quiet Zelda was experiencing now. This was something… deeper. Like a quiet in her thoughts, where before there had been noise.

 _The power is gone._

She opened her eyes.

She was lying on her back in green grass. The sun was high and warm upon her face. The power _was_ gone.

Slowly she worked her way to her feet. It wasn't just the power. Everything was gone. There was a silence inside of her where before there had been a _hum_. Her mother was gone. All of her foremothers. She was deaf to the spirit world, as she'd been a century ago. What did that mean?

 _Ganon._

She raised her head, looked about herself. The field was empty and quiet. Had she killed Ganon? Had the wish worked? Was it over?

To the south she saw the ghost fires. As she looked, they resolved themselves into four familiar shapes. Mipha, Daruk, Urbosa, and Revali hovered in a loose circle some distance above the ground, as if standing vigil over something. Or someone. She saw a flash of silver hair.

The four Champions all looked up simultaneously, as if noticing her together. She was not close enough to read their expressions, but something about them seemed warm… and sad.

They bowed their heads to her. And then they were gone, their duties fulfilled, as if the ghost fires had never hovered in the air at all.

Zelda swayed on her feet. It was all happening too fast. She hadn't been able to say goodbye to them. She had wanted to say goodbye.

She was running. Running toward the place where they'd been, even though she had no strength, even though gravity pulled at her as if she'd never used her legs before, and she couldn't stop. She had to say goodbye. She had to. The world was safe and Ganon was gone and Hyrule was whole and would recover and it didn't matter, none of it _mattered_ because none of this was fair, and if she couldn't at least say goodbye then her heart would die, would go into the spirit world to follow her Champions, to follow—

Then Paya stood up. And she was helping another figure to their feet.

And her heart beat stronger.

The sword was still in his hand, its blade gleaming and long and whole. When he nodded his thanks to Paya his expression was clear and alert, his gratitude written in the lines of his face. When he looked up, she saw him in truth—as he really was, at the strength of his bearing, the set of his shoulders, the vitality and concern and deep, empathetic love behind his clear, blue eyes.

Paya lifted Link to his feet. Both of them stood in the sunlight. They noticed her together.

Her legs were stronger, then, and she ran to them.

To her wish, fulfilled.


	52. The Last Brick

The Sheikah Slate's screen flashed as she pulled up the diagnostics menu, and Zelda watched as the energy outputs of the Divine Beasts slowly declined.

"Well," she said to herself, "save Vah Ruta's, of course. That it had any power at all after the Calamity totalled it is a testament to its construction. Still, the others have been shutting down ancillary systems gradually, working their way toward powering down completely. Is it because they don't have pilots, anymore?"

The sound of running water could be heard, faintly, on the other side of the thick canvas that served as the walling of the Riverside stable. The sun was shining brightly outside. People were going about their lives, and the hum of conversation was a constant low drone in the background. Something in that sound made her feel more secure.

"That seems the most likely reason. If I recall correctly," and she was finding with delight that she _did_ recall correctly more often than not, now, as her own personal memory seemed back in working order, "then they are now entering a state very similar to the one they were unearthed in. It is possible, then, that in time new pilots could be found, and new life given to the Divine Beasts."

There had been some small smattering of gossip, when they had arrived, concerning the flashes of light and the huge monster that had trampled half of Hyrule Field. No one in the stables seemed to know what to make of it—but then, no one in the stables had thought to connect it to the three youths who had walked in together that very evening and then paid for three nights' stay in advance. That was for the best, most likely. Word would spread about them, in time.

Zelda drew her finger across the screen, expanding the few readouts that Vah Ruta's remains were still capable of providing. The last of its systems were _quite_ hardy, it seemed.

"Hmm. I wonder..."

For the first day she had been in something of a daze; all three of them had been, for various reasons, and all three of them had leaned on and supported one another. Paya had returned to her baseline behavior fastest, but Zelda fancied that it had been her _own_ recovery that had been something like complete first.

 _Well. If we can ever truly recover from such things._

No amnesiac, she, nor princess, nor even oracle, though she remembered all of those women, carried them inside of her, might even fancy herself an amalgam of them. This morning, after two days unsure of who she was, she had woken in her bed—her companions already risen to some other task—and simply stared at the ceiling, revelling in the sensation of being able to remember herself. Remember her father, and her mother, and the Champions, and Link—and also remember Paya, and Yunobo, and Sidon, and Teba, and Riju, all at her leisure, with no great gaps save those that came naturally over time. As if she'd laid down her head and woken up a hundred years and some months later, a fuller and more capable person. A person who had walked through an epiphanous dream. A person better able to see herself.

"It is possible that, by studying Vah Ruta's remains, we may be able to gain a better understanding of its underlying systems, or even its manufacture. We might, in theory, even learn how to repair the Divine Beasts. Or rebuild one. Or build new ones, free of their prior vulnerabilities."

This was comfortable, too, and more than comfortable. She could not rely on the awareness of the goddess, or the expansion of her senses beyond mortal limits, or the almost infinite accumulated knowledge of her bloodline. Just her, in her own head, and the understanding of the world that she could build for herself. It should have been more jarring than that—on some level she worried over how easily she was adjusting—but if there would be a shock then she would deal with it as it came. For now thinking of the interlocking systems of the Divine Beasts, the scale at which they operated, the underlying principles that linked them to the Guardians, and the way that all of those pieces fit together in her head was its own pleasure.

"Zelda?"

She looked up from the screen. Paya was standing next to the bed in which she was reclined, the cuffs of her pants rolled up past her knees and a basket under her left arm. Paya looked—well, Zelda had thought _calm_ , for a moment, but that was just her expectations clouding her perception. Her companion's color was high, and her breathing was controlled but seemed very deep.

"I'm sorry," Zelda said, sitting up on the bed and turning to put her feet on the floor. "I was rather lost to the world, just now. What's that you have there?"

"This?" Paya motioned with the basket, and Zelda nodded. "Staminoka bass. Master Link has been showing me how he prefers to catch fish." She did not quite stammer, did not stutter, but there was an energy in that sentence that spoke volumes.

Paya had not been nervous around Link, even from the first, which Zelda had been relieved by. She hadn't gotten a very good sense of how they were spending their time together—Link was never very talkative, and neither was Paya unless she was prompted—but the few times Zelda had seen them sitting around the cookfire in the evening or checking on the horses, they had seemed to be getting along well.

Still. There was no point leaving things ambiguous when they didn't have to be.

"Paya," Zelda said, and there wasn't a shift in Paya's demeanour so much as there was a shift in the _air_ around her. "Are the two of you getting along?"

There, high color shifting to a blush. Paya would probably never be able to hide those reactions. "He's… very resourceful. And confident, and humble. A-and he tells very good stories, too. Sometimes I worry that if I talk too much, I'll offend him or scare him away, but—"

"Do you like him?"

A pause. Outside, one of the goats bleated, and the river kept running.

Paya looked at her feet. "He's very… I enjoy his company."

Zelda set the Sheikah Slate down on her lap, reached out, and took hold of Paya's right hand. She leaned forward, kissing the spot where Paya's wrist joined her palm, felt the elevated pulse against her lips. She broke off the kiss and straightened up as Paya slowly pulled her hand back.

"I'm very glad," Zelda said, because she was.

It took a few long moments before Paya gathered herself enough to nod and then continue, "I-I'm going to get started on cleaning these. If you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you and Master Link could lend me a hand."

Zelda fastened the Sheikah Slate to her hip, rising from the bed. "Certainly. I'll go fetch him. Is he still at the river?"

"Yes, just past the pens for the goats and cuccos."

"I will only be a minute, in that case. We will meet you out front."

They stepped outside together, Paya heading toward a spot remote enough that cleaning the fish wouldn't bother other guests at the stable and Zelda swinging around to the left. She walked past the stabling for the horses (all of whom looked to be in excellent condition, though she'd never had an eye for that sort of thing), and past the woodpile that kept the communal cookpot going. She'd actually chopped wood on the second day, to have something to do with her hands, and managed not to embarrass herself even with Link and Paya both watching. The weapons experience she'd gained on her journey, it so happened, was practical for things besides fighting monsters.

She rounded the edge of the stable and saw him, just as Paya had said, in the shallows of the river just beyond the space between the livestock pens.

Like Paya, his pants were rolled up past his knees; unlike Paya, he'd seen fit to remove his tunic, so that he stood in the water naked from the waist up. He was already tanning, his skin drinking up the sun as if it had been starved during his years of confinement. There was a second basket next to him, nearly full of bass. He was staring down into the water, facing away from her, hands poised to strike.

"Link," she said, and he looked up. "I _think_ you might have too many fish."

He blinked at her, then looked at the nearly-brimming basket, then at her again. "Two more."

She bit back the urge to argue; they were already so far past 'enough' that two more would hardly make a difference. "Are you catching them with your _hands_?" He nodded. "And Paya was doing the same?" He nodded again. Well, that… that was certainly an interesting image. Could it really be so easy? She'd heard of fishing with nets, or line and hook, and the Zora were proficient with spears, but she'd never heard of using one's _hands_. She had to see. "May I try?"

He waved her over.

She removed her boots, placed them next to Link's on the shore, and rolled up the legs of her trousers. She waded into the water, which was warm and pleasant. She felt the weight of his eyes on her. "I am all right. I promise I will not trip. Now, please show me how to do this."

He purposely turned his attention back to the water, and she followed his gaze. There were some small number of very large bass milling nearby; how thick could these waters _be_?

Link said, "These fish won't notice you unless you get too close and move too suddenly. Some will, but not staminoka." As he spoke, he waded—very slowly—out into the water, drawing closer to the milling fish. They must not have seen him—or, no, perhaps they viewed him as terrain? Did they judge motion by water currents, instead of with their eyes? He continued in a quieter voice, "You just judge the distance. Make sure your reach is right. Limber up your fingers." He wiggled them, to illustrate. "And."

A flash, a splash of water, and one of the bass swam quickly away. The other, though, was above Link's head, flopping wildly in the air. Zelda had to fight the urge to clap. It was a _very_ good trick. The Hero himself showed no particular emotion as he lobbed the fish through the air so that it landed in the basket.

"Now you try."

She nodded to him, then looked out into the water. The one that had fled had wandered back; the attention span (or memory retention?) of this species really _was_ quite short. She waded forward, just as slowly as Link had done, and just as with him the fish did not react to her presence. Only violent movement seemed to alert them. She leaned forward, judging the distance carefully. Wiggled her fingers. Held her breath. And.

 _Apparently_ she failed to account for light refraction in the water, because her hands only closed on the fish's tail. With a single thrash it slipped from her fingers and sped off—right towards Link, who hoisted it out of the water with no apparent effort or rush.

She was sure she wasn't glaring at him, she was _positive_ , but he was still looking pointedly away from her as he tossed the fish into the basket. "That was a good first try," he said.

"Yes, well. Catching fish is a bit of a binary, isn't it? You either succeed or you go hungry." _Or overeat less, as the case may be._ "Still, you are right, I am pleased with my first attempt. In spite of everything, I can't expect to have hands as quick as yours or Paya's."

"No," Link agreed, and together they waded back to shore. He redonned his tunic while Zelda dried her feet in the grass, and once they'd both gotten their boots back on Link hoisted the basket under his arm. He was looking at her very seriously.

"What is it?"

His response was slow and measured. "Paya _does_ have quick hands."

She allowed herself to smile. "She does, yes. She's been telling you some stories of our travels, hasn't she?"

"Yes." Another pause. "She's the sort of person who downplays her own role in those stories."

Now she couldn't hide her wince. "I… suppose that she is very modest."

Link just nodded. "You've traveled with her for a while. Will you help me, later? I want to thank her. For traveling with you. For helping you, and for helping me. I want to let her know I appreciate her."

Again, that same warmth in her chest. This, at least, she could do, and she did not need to ask Link for clarification. "Of course I will. We will both let her know." She gestured to the basket. "Right now, though, I think she would appreciate it if we helped her clean the fish."

They walked together, and as they walked Zelda stole glances at Link's profile. His bearing was not so different than it had been before the Calamity—but _months_ before the Calamity, before even the incident at Kara Kara Bazaar, when he faced the world with stoic reservation, marshalling himself so he did not expose any weaknesses to the world or to her. His memory of the time before his fight with Ganon was, based on the few conversations they'd had, complete; still. There was a distance, here.

She did not remember much of the sensation of being one with the power of Hylia—her sensory memory didn't seem able to contain the experience—but she did remember standing with him in the dark. She remembered how happy he had been, speaking to her. From a century ago she remembered how she had felt during that conversation in the rain when he had told her so much more than she had realized in the moment. And seeing him like this? It was almost more than she could bear.

"I understand if you need time," she said, and almost instantly regretted the words at the way his attention jumped suddenly and totally to her. "After everything you've been through… I can't imagine. The world must seem so different, now. But if you need to talk about what happened—I mean, I can't offer advice, but I can _listen_ , and Paya remembers when Ganon took her prisoner, and—"

He did not smile, but his eyes softened. "When I woke up in the field, and Paya was standing over me, do you know what I said to her?"

She shook her head. Paya hadn't mentioned this at all. Perhaps there had been no time, in the past few days, as they all recuperated in different ways.

"I said, 'Impa. I was having the strangest dream.'"

"Oh," she said, and the thickness of her own voice surprised her. She cleared her throat, marshalled herself. "Is that why you've been sleeping so little? Do you… I mean, do the bad dreams…?"

He shook his head. "Not bad dreams." He looked away from her, then, instead focusing on the spot they were walking to. "Intense dreams. Dreams where I'm fighting and Ganon is still there. It hurts, yes, and I'm exhausted, and I wake up feeling as if I haven't slept at all, but… even in the dream, I know that I'm fighting for you." He looked back at her. "And it's a good dream. No matter what."

A hundred years ago, seated beneath the scanty branches of a tree, listening to him talk about fighting for her, she had resisted the urge to grab his hand, resisted the urge to speak. She had mastered herself, denied herself, for shame and for her burden and for his protection.

Now she reached out and slipped her fingers into his. There was a moment of pressure—strong, blissful, even pressure—as he squeezed her hand. The warmth of his palm spread up her arm, suffusing her chest.

By a mutually understood signal they released their grip. Walked across the grounds of the stable. Found Paya cleaning fish beneath a tree just off the path.

* * *

Link scaled the fish, his knife taking off whole sides of gleaming silver in a single stroke so that he could deposit the scales cleanly into a cloth bag that he would later wash in the stream. Paya gutted the scaled fish, cleaning the entrails so that some could be used for stock while others were turned inside out and stuffed with the other organs to make sausages. Zelda segmented the fish, at Paya's direction.

This was how it had gone for the past two days: all three of them would work together to prepare ingredients, and then Paya would cook. Link sat back during those times, watching the fire underneath the pot. When the time came he ate only very little. That worried Zelda—and Paya had heard enough stories of his appetite that it worried her, too. They both agreed that there was little they could do about it—though if the behavior continued, they were resolved to try to address it together.

While they worked, they talked.

"We are reaching the end of our initial deposit," Zelda said. "There are enough beds, and all the commotion has frightened most travelers into staying away from Hyrule Field, so we wouldn't be taking up too much space if we stayed longer."

"Lodgings for three are expensive," Paya said.

"Be that as it may," Zelda said, "we have more than enough rupees on hand. We could stay here for a month without putting any real strain on our resources."

Link said, "Where would you want to go?"

He was speaking to Zelda. The birds were singing in the trees around them, and the heady fragrance of woodsmoke wafted over from the cookfire. Zelda had to fight the urge to look at Paya, who she knew was also fighting the urge to look at her.

Well. She might as well be honest; if she couldn't be honest with Link, she couldn't really be honest with anyone in the world.

"I was thinking that we should examine the Divine Beasts, if possible. Each of them seems to be losing power, and I want to discover why. If it is because the influence of the Champions is fading, then finding other suitable pilots may allow us to reactivate them. Each of them could be very useful to the peoples of Hyrule in different ways."

Link nodded thoughtfully, the scaled fish in his hand momentarily forgotten.

"Master Link," Paya said, "would you pass that to me?"

He held it out to her with an expression that could not be described as reproachful.

Still, the bodyguard looked down and blushed furiously. "S-Sorry. Link." She took the fish from his hand, then coughed. "Zelda, if that is your goal, perhaps it would be best to head toward Vah Ruta first?"

"I concur. Ruta was almost completely destroyed by the Calamity, and we may be able to glean a great deal of information from the wreckage. It would be an excellent starting point, allowing us to reason out principles of design that might tell us how to better maintain the other Divine Beasts. I think that, if I contact Purah, she would be very eager to join us there." She realized how long she'd been talking, then cut the head and tail off a fish and dropped all three parts into one of the baskets. To Link: "Do you feel like traveling, or would you rather rest a while longer?"

The Hero looked up, and dappled sunlight fell on his face. After long seconds, he said, "I'd like to see Zora's Domain again."

Paya's shoulders lowered as the tension left her and Zelda felt a grin spreading across her face and did not care at all to restrain it. "Wonderful! If I use the Sheikah Slate, we can be there as soon as we're done eating, and—"

And she stopped, seeing Link rubbing at the back of his head, the one sign he ever gave that he was embarrassed.

Paya's hand was shaking as she laid it on Link's shoulder. The Hero turned to the last Champion, and Paya said in a steady voice, "Whatever is on your mind, you should say it. You aren't inconveniencing us."

Link blinked at Paya before looking to Zelda, who gave a very controlled nod so as not to hurt her neck in her enthusiasm.

Again, his hesitation. Again birdsong, and woodsmoke, and the sound of his knife scraping across a fish. Then: "It's… been a long time since I travelled the path to the Domain. Would it be all right if we rode?"

"Yes! Yes, of course it would be. We're no longer in any hurry, after all. We have all the time in the world." Zelda did not even try to hide her excitement, now, and as their plans for the next days and weeks grew more concrete in her head she piled on more details. It _would_ be good to travel again, by horse, without worrying about the world ending. "This will be grand. We should definitely stop by the Domain, and once we arrive, we can warp directly to Vah Ruta's remains. Oh, the Zora will be so happy to see you."

"Especially King Dorephan," Paya said.

Link's eyes lit up, and for the first time since standing in the field he looked genuinely excited. "Is the king well?"

"Yes," Zelda said. "A little more scarred, perhaps, but healthy and as strong as ever. He said that, when Ganon was defeated, we should bring you to him. And Sidon will probably be ecstatic."

"Sidon," Link said. "He must be so tall, now."

They kept working in silence, but now Link's mouth was upturned in a nostalgic smile.

* * *

The fish cleaned, the trio carried the prepared meat to the cookpot. Link took his bag of scales to the river to rinse out, and Paya and Zelda worked on preparing the cookpot for the fish. With this much fresh bass, their only real choice for getting it all cooked in a timely manner was to let the whole lot simmer for hours until it was a thick, rich stew.

While they were adding thick-cut carrots and pumpkins, Link came back and sat next to the fire.

Zelda, realizing that she was hindering Paya's efforts more than aiding them, got to her feet. Paya looked up from the cookpot long enough for their eyes to meet, long enough for the months they'd spent traveling to lend color and meaning to the nod that the bodyguard gave to her princess, before returning to her task.

Zelda sat next to Link.

She could not have said why the hands of the people around her occupied so much of her attention, of late, but it felt right when she took both of Link's in hers. This was bold; this was more than bold, and in spite of her desire for boldness she looked to his face and sought some answer there. He looked back at her with an expression that most would have found unreadable—but not she. She could see, in the lines of his face, that he was waiting. Waiting to see what she would do. Waiting to see what she desired.

She pulled his gloves off, running her fingertips over the callouses on his palms, the proof of his devotion to the sword.

 _They do not look as if he has been fighting for a hundred years. There is something here. Why do I recognize this feeling?_

Her breath caught.

 _I am lying on the Blatchery Plain. His arms are around me. My hand is on his face—and then his palm supports that hand as it falls. He is strong, and calloused, and I have never seen anyone look so sad._

Yes. His hands were just as they'd been on that day. For one moment she was transported back—not to the pain, not to the fear, not to the sorrow that she had laid on him, but to the feeling of his hand on hers, his cheek beneath her palm.

She lifted his left hand and placed his palm against her cheek. Looked up at him.

His expression was soft as he leaned down. As he pressed his forehead against hers, the gentlest pressure in the world.

She closed her eyes, wished for this moment to stretch out, and out, and out. _Just this. I don't need anything else but this._

There was... something, from Link. Not a trembling; he did not tremble. Not a _thought_ , exactly; she could not touch the thoughts of others anymore. But something told her, deep and sure and positive, that as much as she had everything she needed, there was still more she could do. For him. Something to speak to the disquiet in his heart.

They raised their heads, and she released his hand, and the two of them settled into more comfortable positions, facing the fire. Paya agitated the vegetables with a wooden spoon, trying not to look so obviously happy. Link leaned forward, and there was tension in his shoulders.

 _I know that look. How often has he seen it in me? How many times, seeing it, did he lead me into my lab? To my notes? To the work of my own hands?_

She laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He turned to look at her. She motioned toward the fire with her head. "Go on," she said.

A moment's hesitation and Link got to his feet, crossing over to Paya. She looked up at him with wide, almost confused eyes.

"May I take care of that?"

Paya nodded, stepping up and away, dusting off her legs before going to sit beside Zelda. Link took her place by the fire, began adding more sliced carrots and chopped pumpkin—and then a very great deal of milk, and a pinch of Goron spice, and rock salt that he crumbled in his hands.

There was a certain ease in the way his hands moved, a certain comfortable familiarity with the ingredients he used, and Zelda found herself staring at him as he worked. She glanced up long enough to see that Paya was staring, too. Here, for the first time, Zelda shared Link as only she had seen him before: doing what he loved to do with his hands, beyond holding a sword.

Hyrulean herbs and toasted lotus roots were added to the stew as it boiled, and Link stirred the pot. He tilted the baskets of fish into the mixture. The smell coming off of it grew stronger, more enticing, and Zelda found that she was hungrier than she had thought. The vat of food in front of them was large enough to feed dozens of people—and, slowly, the guests and travelers and messengers and stable hands began to drift closer, drawn in by the smell of the food prepared by the three youths. The young cook went on, not noticing the world around him.

Paya's hand slipped into hers, and she returned the touch.

The air was filled by the sound of Link's humming.

And finally—finally—Zelda felt at peace.

* * *

You do not need to know more.

This is enough, surely.

Leave these three to their happy ending. Imagine for yourself what future waits for them; they are young, and their hearts are still growing, and the feelings that exist between all three of them will surely change. Perhaps they will become more sure, and the potential will blossom into something permanent and beautiful; perhaps they will become more sure, and in that surety there will be friction that they could have never predicted arising from their shared gratitude, their shared affection. That would be beautiful, too, wouldn't it? What is a happy ending without some strife?

Leave them. Leave them to the scholar's research, where she will study the Divine Beasts and unlock the underlying secrets of the cosmos, not by some accident of her birth but by the focused and laborious application of her mind. Leave them to the attendant's growth, where she will stand tall next to the pair from the stories she loved as a child and come to understand her place beside them. Leave them to the Hero's rest, his long-earned reward for a century of devotion, and sacrifice, and pain.

Leave them. They are happy. They will be happy.

Turn away, now. Let it be enough.

But, no.

If you have come this far, you wish to know the whole truth. Our journey has been very long, after all. You've followed all three through pain and loss and triumph. You wish to know. You have to know.

You can still leave them, you know. You can still let them have their happy ending, make it anything you want. You don't have to keep going.

But I see your decision has been made. So be it.

You have traveled with them far; you have seen, particularly, into the mind of the scholar. You know well the wall of her amnesia. You remember how it crumbled.

So, too, you remember the last brick, overgrown with memory, papered over by the intensity of her life, of the surety of her identity. One brick of a mighty wall; the last brick.

The last secret, hidden even from Zelda.

Pick it up.

Look.

* * *

As it was in another time, another life, so it was here.

Beneath Hyrule Castle there was a chamber in which the Calamity had been imprisoned for ten thousand years and a century more, first by the power of the Royal Family and then by the hand that wielded the Sword That Seals the Darkness. This, according to all living memory, was the darkest depth of the kingdom, the secret vigil on which stood hundreds of generations of queens.

Perhaps some of those queens understood. None of them _knew_ , of course. Knowing would have required knowledge that had been buried inside all of them, hidden beneath a single brick.

Knowledge that there was a deeper darkness. That there was a place beneath those depths.

Down, down, into the earth, until bedrock opened and a space yawned—not a cave but an entire country, an underworld to match the overworld on which Hyrule sat.

Beneath Hyrule Castle, _deep_ beneath, one might find a path. As Zelda and Link and Paya walked in the sunlight, they unknowingly tread above a vast bridge, illuminated by the constant light of subterranean stones.

Zelda would have recognized the make of that bridge, the architecture that fed it; it was Zonai, of a people who had left almost no structures on the surface after they faded from the pages of history.

Zonai, too, was the temple that stood at the far end of that bridge, a fortress to keep out the world—or to keep in the last secret, so terrible that it had been denied to the passage of time, stripped from the memories of gods and mortals alike. Some knowledge, after all, was too terrible to be known. Some truths had been hidden. Some truths _needed_ to be hidden.

One of these: that the Calamity was not a creature in and of itself but a _scream_ , an echo of a mighty voice raised in fury, born out of the Malice of a bottomless heart. That it only _thought_ itself the source of all evil, that it vied to emulate the memories of a life not its own. That it was a shadow cast upon the wall. That the Calamity was gone but the hunger persisted, yawning in the dark.

In the heart of that temple one might stand, and see the trap laid there: ancient Gerudo script floating in the air, marking an incantation to shackle darkness. A hand, an _arm_ covered in Zonai jewelry, clutching at life, forcing it to stillness.

And if one was in that place after the Calamity was destroyed, if one stood there as Zelda and Link and Paya shared their meal with the people who lived on by their courage, if one stood in the shadow of the figure whose body was frozen in a contortion of pain and fury, and one listened, one could hear. Slow, at first, and then quicker. Louder. More insistent. More real.

He had been watching the land, watching the suffering of its people through golden eyes. So too was he watching the three. For ages he had watched them all. Like a dream.

He had been dreaming for so long that the possibility of waking was, itself, a shock.

The sound grew louder. No longer a suggestion. It was the anthem of that place, the promise of confinement ended. One could listen. One could hear its song.

The pounding of a drum.

The beating of a mighty heart.


End file.
